I finished running 11 miles about an hour ago. Leave it to a long distance run to make you feel like you've aged 20 years in two hours! My knees, my back, my inability to take deep breaths without coughing . . . ok, ok, enough complaining.
Actually, the hardest part of my run today was miles 3 & 4. I had run enough to have burned off this morning's caffeine buzz, but I was far from my finish line. As I continued on, I actually felt stronger. I glided through miles 8 & 9. Miles 10 & 11 were fueled by a recent memory verse taken slightly out of context, "Not by might nor by power, but by my Spirit, says the Lord Almighty"! I knew I had the finish line at close reach.
My life seems to be stuck in miles 3 & 4. When I ran today, I actually spent those miles pleading for God to take away my negative and fatalistic attitude. You see, the honeymoon phase is over in my ministry at Duck UMC. The initial excitement and passion mixed with a good dose of fear has subsided. People are getting to know the real me: my inflexibility, my inability to make quick decisions, my people-pleasing tendencies, and even my insecurity and loneliness. Although we recently launched our new vision for the youth ministry, I feel like we are so far from seeing it come to reality. The "finish line" is nowhere in sight.
I'm learning that life really is a long distance race. There are few frills, just persistant steps toward the finish line no matter how far away it may be. But here is the hope: there is a joyful end! What is our finish line? Hebrews 12:2 says Jesus, "the author and perfecter of our faith". What a great image! Imagine this finish line scene that will appear at the end of your life: You'll be running with your eyes fixed on Jesus. Yes, you will be tired, but when you reach him, he'll stretch out his arms to welcome you home. He'll hand you a bottle of water from that refreshing river of life, and he'll speak these words into your ear, "Well done, good and faithful servant." Let that be your motivation. Even if you are on miles 3 & 4 like I am, "Consider him who endured such opposition from sinful men, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart" (Heb. 12:3). May God encourage you as you run the race he's marked out for your life!
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Not that I don't think you know this, but I just wanted to throw in my 2 cents of a complete opposite view.
When we are in the thick of living our life for God (and, I think, this applies all the more for those in full time ministry) we can feel like the finish line is a LOOOONG way away...
There's a vision of where we want to get to, a desire to work like crazy to reach it, and the tendancy to feel the weariness of the race. What we must be careful to avoid is the notion that God is somewhere at the end of the race, waiting for us to be faithful to the end, and then our worth will be proven to Him, and we can then rest from our work.
Hebrews reminds us that "There remains, then, a Sabbath-rest for the people of God; for anyone who enters God's rest also rests from his own work, just as God did from his." The unintuitive thing about it is, this rest is ours NOW, in Christ. We can rest in Jesus while we run our race of grateful response to his grace. A bit backwards, but so true.
So I guess the main point is that we shouldn't confuse our race of joyful response to grace with the race of obedience, a race run by Christ, with the finish line in the past, at the cross, and with the great proclamation "It is finished".
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