Help Me To Run

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. 1 Corinthians 9.24.

Have you watched the Olympics? I am sure you have! The sprinters dash for the finish line with all their strength and passion to win. You watch so excitedly with eyes fixed on the runners in the front. In a moment it is all over. The competition was so intense and close that you could hardly make out any gap between the gold and silver medalist! Have you noticed that in fact all in the pack were right behind the winners, only a fraction of a second away! How sad I sometimes feel for all those who did not win but put in years of hard training day after day!

Dear friend, you too are in a race – a spiritual race of running after the Lord Jesus Christ for a crown, not of gold but imperishable and in heaven. Thank God in this race all who run can receive that crown – not just one person! But the question is, “Are you running the race with such fervency and diligence as these athletes? They run for their life just to win a small round gold medal? We run for gaining Eternal life! But unlike them, we take no regular time for our spiritual exercises - meditating on God’s word and fellowshipping with God in prayer. We do not keep ourselves fit and agile for our spiritual race by shedding the extra weight of sin and bad habits.

The problem with you and I is that we do not consider ourselves in a ‘race’ like the apostle Paul. Rather we take it like a leisurely evening walk! We do not prepare ourselves. We have no aim or goal. We take no care. We simply go along any and everyway, kicking the dust on the road and getting dirty! We even pick up unwanted things that attract our attention and add to our weight rather than shed some burden! Some even get lost!

Dear believer, how long will you be on this listless spiritual walk when the whole Scripture exhorts you to buck up, throw your sinful burden away, hit the track and run for your life each day? The writer of the Hebrews also reminds you that Christian life is a race. This is how he puts it! “Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us. …. In your struggle against sin, you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood” (Heb 12.1,4). Have you? Why not?

Pray and practise with me: Dear Lord, I pray that You may shake me up today from my lazy spiritual walk with You. Hit me with the reality that it is a race in which I could ‘gain or lose’ my eternal life! Help me begin to run today, casting away all my sinful burdens! Amen.