Sermonette: Run the race

Currently in Sunday school at my church, we are working through the Book of Acts. This week, we arrived at Paul’s farewell to the Ephesian elders in chapter 20. In verse 24, Paul states that his entire difficult life will be worth it if only he can finish the race. This struck me because I am a runner. I did a quick word search and found that Paul talks about his run and/or race nine separate times across eight different letters! This was surprising to me that Paul uses the reference so many different places. Obviously, the ‘running the race’ metaphor was close to Paul’s heart. Now, I’ve read this line a million times, heard it preached, and seen it on posters over and over again; but for whatever reason, Paul’s words struck me this time.

See, I’ve run races; more than a few, in fact. I haven’t counted in a while, but somewhere in the range of over 70 5ks. That number doesn’t include any of the 6 years of track I ran at high school, either. I’ve toed that starting line, looked at my feet and awaited the gun time and time again; but I’ve never made the connection to my spiritual race. See, when I run, my biggest enemy isn’t the terrain, the clock or the lactic acid buildup in my legs. My greatest foe has always been my mind. Despite having run so many races, I still always arrive at this point in the race when I just want to give up, or at least slow down to a jog. I’ve run 8-mile runs before – my fastest times are behind me – and yet in the middle of race it’s all I can do to not stop. For all my mental fortitude and experience, it is a war to convince myself of the simple fact that at most, I only have 10 minutes or so left. All I need to do is persevere for 10 minutes. Ten more minutes and I can spend the next year recovering. All I need to do is endure a shorter time length than I preach, every single Sunday. It is just so hard. The exhaustion, the fatigue, the burn just seems to dominate my perspective and make it so I can’t see the truth: that this race will make up less than 2 percent of my day. I’ll spend more time eating in a day, than enduring through a race.

This struggle of mine bears an undeniable parallel in my spiritual race. In my walk with Jesus through my life, I hit hard patches. Times when I just want to give up, or at least not follow Jesus with my whole heart. Periods when I fight myself to acknowledge the truth of the situation: that this time on Earth is extremely limited. One day we’ll die, and we’ll look back at our entire time on earth as being little more than a blink of an eye. From that perspective, our trials, even if they last for years, are insignificant; and yet, it’s nearly impossible to convince myself of that truth. The difficulty and exhaustion of the trial overwhelm my attempts at gaining perspective. They pull my mind down and force me to focus on the difficulty, rather than the goal.

This is why Paul talks about finishing the race well. All Paul needed from this life was to be able to say that he pushed through the tough periods without slowing down. That through all the torture, loneliness and eventual martyrdom, he kept his eye on the ball and kept his focus on what mattered – finishing well. My prayer is that I can be same way. That I can stay focused on the true perspective: that trials and difficult times here are insignificant compared to eternity. But like my races, how much I can tolerate the difficulties and keep up my speed will affect when and how I finish. And I want to finish well.