The Race
Once upon a time, my spring sport of choice was track and my specific event of choice was the high hurdles. I spent a lot of time training to be in the best shape to run those hurdles with the best form. And in the meantime, I got a lot of bruises, a few pulled muscles, and, as it turned out, not very many medals.
Fast forward to today, a couple of decades later, and these days I try not to hurdle much of anything if I can help it.
So from a certain perspective it would be easy to think that all of those days spent training for a race that I was never exceptionally good at were kind of a waste. But they really weren't, because as it turned out, in training for that particular event, I learned some very important things about life.
For example, I learned that, be it on the artificial confines of a quarter-mile track or in the midst of day-to-day life, there is something about competition that can bring out the best and the worst in people. And that’s a really fascinating thing to see. I think that’s one of the reasons why we don't just play sports, we also watch them. The fact is that we are all designed for greatness. And that fact becomes a little more obvious when we find ourselves surrounded by people who are all striving to be the best.
So as it turned out, high hurdles weren't good for me because I was the best at it. They were good for me because I was at my best at it. My training changed the way I ate, it changed the way I slept, it changed the things I thought about and talked about. And it woke something up inside of me that craved victory.
And all of us, long after the days when we hang up our track spikes, must come to grips with the joy and the terror that comes with the fact that we are built by God for greatness.
And it’s a real challenge, because most of us have long ago given up on greatness. We have histories that include too much losing and not enough winning, and no expectation that that’s going to change.
So as a result of that, we "settle in" to whatever kind of life seems achievable for us, and we take whatever is left of that inborn drive to be something and do something, and we push it away. Sometimes we eject it out of ourselves in bouts of anger and frustration. Sometimes we try to bury it in ourselves under mountains of busyness and distraction. But neither approach ever really works. So we have those moments where we find ourselves feeling lost and listless, sitting in the stands of life, and wishing we had something to run for.
Ladies and Gentlemen! Boys and Girls! Guess what? You do.
You, right now in this moment, are nothing less than an image-bearer of the living God created for a greatness that is beyond anything we can even imagine. You may be broken and dusty and in desperate need of a tune-up, but regardless, that is what you are.
In the Book of First Corinthians, Chapter Nine, Verse 24, the Bible says:
"Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one gets the prize? Run in such a way as to get the prize."
Ladies and Gentlemen, embrace the race today. Not because you will be the best at it, but because you will be at your best at it. Turn your heart to the living God and experience in this moment the life that He has for you.
