5k Done!
I have put off this post for about 2 weeks now, but the time has finally come. I have run my first 5k. I would like to take this space to give God the glory for allowing me all the resources to do this, primarily my physical health. I’ve written of this before, but every breath we draw is approved by him, and so only through his will was I able to complete this 5k. I want you to be able to share in my journey, and I do think that this is a good milestone, but I must first give glory where it is due.
That being said, sometimes it is hard to let victories be victories. I have struggled with wanting more despite my success and not allowing myself to look back and appreciate how far God has brought me. I’ve worried about my training leading up to the 5k that I did not do enough, and I’ve wondered about my time after the 5k and if I should be better. In part, I enjoy some of this competitiveness that helps me push myself, but overall not embracing your wins leads to being emotionally fatigued for the task at hand. Those things are part of my personal makeup, but it brings me to an important analogy gained from reflections on the race.
If you have not tried walking or running a 5k, despite my early resistance I would recommend it. My first posture was “Why would anyone pay to run? It’s literally free and it’s difficult.” That thought changed into looking at the 5k as a goal, but in actually running the race I found the true power of it. The power of the other people. As I started out running I found my pace in the pace of the runners around me, the ones pacing near my pace, and late into the run, it was crucial to keep me going to find some guys who were still running strong. More than that are the folks who are cheering you on, especially at the end of the track there are volunteers and racers who have finished who take the time to cheer on these other runners whom they don’t know but share the race with. As inevitable as this analogy is between running and scripture I had a strong sense of the passage in Hebrews 12:
“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, 2 fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith.”
Here were all of these people running towards the same goal and those who have finished are cheering us on, just like Moses, and Rahab, and Gideon, and countless others. It’s such a humbling and joyful thing to think of our great spiritual ancestors in heaven, a cloud of them surrounding us cheering us on as we persevere to finish the race. But it gets even better than that, and here’s where the analogy links up with that struggle of mine: we each have our own race to run. In that race, there were those who walked, 5kers, 10kers, half marathoners, and marathoners. If I had followed a marathoner I not only would have given out, but I would have run down a completely different path than the one I was given to run. Hebrews tells us to fix our eyes on Jesus. We can’t run anyone else’s race, and we can’t live anyone else’s life either, but our call is to fix our eyes on Jesus and join him in the prayer of: “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done.” For as long as we run our race, focused on him, he will see us through to the finish as it is written:
“May God himself, the God of peace, sanctify you through and through. May your whole spirit, soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. 24 The one who calls you is faithful, and he will do it.”
“Therefore you do not lack any spiritual gift as you eagerly wait for our Lord Jesus Christ to be revealed. 8 He will also keep you firm to the end, so that you will be blameless on the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. 9 God is faithful, who has called you into fellowship with his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.”
Dear Readers, our race has been won. We don’t need to measure up, we don’t need to out perform, and we don’t lack any gifts. The one who calls us is faithful and he will do it.
