Race

[image error]Ready. Set. Go. In honor of the Kentucky Derby there was a 5k race that I volunteered at this morning. The steeplechase course was wet and muddy. Some runners ran without any hesitation even though their feet were sloshing around in their shoes. Others were more careful, not worrying about speed, but searching for the dry path to run and walk. I watched as the group of runners who were concerned with the puddles of mud were easily overtaken by runners who just ran through the water without any concern. The slow and steady tortoise doesn’t always win the race.

As a kid I was never the fastest. When we had races in annual school field days or in the gym I would never win, but I would never lose either. I was always in the middle of the pact. Winning wasn’t the top priority because I knew I wasn’t the fastest. My goal was always just to finish. To cross the finish line. To say I did it. As years went on, after college, I would run and people would say I was fast. But did I really get faster or did the majority of adults stop running? I continued to run at my steady pace, but as my friends started becoming couch potatoes, it was easy to appear fast. My pace didn’t change, but theirs did. They may have stopped running, but life’s race continues.

So what race are you running?

Are you racing beside the Jones’s, trying to keep up with their towers of secret debt? Are you climbing the ladder of promotions, crawling over anyone who gets in your way? Are you hiking through the wilderness of envy, where green eyes and green thumbs grow rampant? Or are you spinning madly in your hamster wheel of being good enough – trying to find an ounce of self worth, a race against yourself? A race that is hard win.

It seems like with life’s races our main focus is the other runners. Not the race itself. This life shouldn’t be a daily competition of who’s the fastest, richest, prettiest, smartest, fittest, nicest. We shouldn’t compare ourselves to others best, because their best may be a fraudulent show. It’s easy to glam up your life – to hide the skeletons in locked closets or sweep up the messy past under an impressive ornate rug. It’s harder to show your real fully exposed self. But the thing is, we are all messy people with a messy life in need of a Fixer who can and will make things right.

Sometimes when we run life’s race, we don’t run to Him, but from Him. We think that we can hide our true intentions from Him. We believe we can outsmart the Wise One. We foolishly think that we can dart from His reaches. But He’s always within reach, if we know it or not.

May we run life’s race not as a competition of 1 against all but more like a team. We need the strengths of others when we are not feeling strong. We need the wisdom of others when we are not feeling sure. We need the friendship of others when we are feeling alone.

You can run the race alone and win, but how sad the victory party will be. Or you can run life’s race with a party, then every moment will be a celebration. Not just the finish line.

So, ready. Set. Go forth and run the race Christ is calling you to run. If you run with Him you will realize you are never alone. He will be with you always and most likely you will have a “cloud of witnesses” beside you, encouraging you, cheering you, praising you, lifting you up when you fall and carrying you when you cannot move. We are in this race together. I’m not going to win it, so if you want to run with me, I’ll be here – somewhere in the middle.

Peace