Sunday, February 18, 2018

Unencumbered: Running the Race



My son-in-law is a runner.  I say that with pride because I never have been one, not in my entire life, as far as I can remember.  Bill began training for a marathon about a year ago.  He was running, but in June he got serious about that training.  He began running between 15 and 40 miles a week, running even in temperatures of 95 degrees and up.  The race came, and he finished!  But the running didn’t stop there.  He’s still running, down now to 9-15 miles a week.  That’s hard for me to even imagine.  I’m lucky to walk a mile right now.
I thought of Bill because of a couple of verses, Hebrews 12:1 and 2, “Therefore we also, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.”  There is so much in those two verses, but the two words that caught me are “weights” and “sins”.
First, weights, and I’ve had a hard time distinguishing between weights and sins.  Perhaps we can just say there is an overlap.  The Amplified version says, “stripping off every unnecessary weight.”  The New Living translation says, “strip off every weight that slows us down.”  The Good News Bible says, “Let us rid ourselves of everything that gets in the way.”  That’s means the things that slow us down or keep us from running the race well.
My list of weights includes memories of the past, fear, weariness, physical weakness, even a lack of faith.  Sometimes memories hold me captive.  A line from Martha Snell Nicholson’s poem, Judgment Day, says, “While memory runs like a hunted thing down the paths I cannot retrace.”  I admit that this is one of my weights.  I grieve, I weep, I regret things that I cannot change.  Those memories can handicap me, stop me from being and doing what I should.  Do you have those memories that are weighing you down? What about fear, fear of what might happen as you run this race, fear of what others may think of you, fear of consequences?  Perhaps physical pain or weakness has kept you from running the race.  No two races are alike.  You are not a clone of anyone.  God does not expect you or me to run anyone else’s race, but we are to strip off the weights that slow us down in our races.
Sins.  Now that’s a heavy one.  The Amplified Bible says, “the sin which so easily and cleverly entangles us.” The New Living Translation describes “the sin that so easily trips us up,” while the Good News Bible talks about the “sin which holds on to us so tightly.” Each of us has personal sins that entangle us and cause us to trip.  If you’ve been a Christian for a longer time and have had more time to take care of the sins that are easy for others to recognize, your sins have probably gone underground.  I think those are actually harder to get rid of.  Sin is anything, no matter how “small,” that separates you from God.  These could include self-righteousness or pride, judging, laziness, gossip, discontent, self-centeredness, prayerlessness. . . . Fill in your blank.  I think these could be summed up as lack of love.  Jesus said the first commandment was to love God with all your heart and the second was to love your neighbor as yourself.  (Matthew 22).  I Corinthians 13 says if you don’t have love, you are nothing. Wouldn’t love take care of pride and self-righteousness?  Would we need to compare ourselves to others?  Wouldn’t gossip disappear if we truly loved?  Wouldn’t we pray more for others if we loved them?  But without that love we will be tripped up, will be easily entangled, will be thwarted in the race God has given us to run.
            Verse 2 of chapter 12 gives us the ultimate coaching for a well-run race.  We are to run with endurance, fixing our eyes on Jesus (NASB). We are to run with endurance and active persistence (looking away from all that will distract us) and focusing our eyes on Jesus (AMP).  Reliance on Him is the key to a well-run race.

            Are you ready to run your marathon?  Will you run with me in the race? My goal is to be found faithful at the end of my race.  Paul said, “I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith.”  (II Timothy 4:7) May I be able to say the same when I have run my race.

                                                                   ~~Faith Himes Lamb

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