Your Race is Customized

Life is like a race. I know it feels like an uphill battle sometimes with its busyness and pressures, but one truth that helps me to run patiently is the realization that I have a customized race, perfectly designed by my loving Heavenly Father for me. My life is not a jumble of random out of control events, and my race is different than your race.

I’m studying Hebrews 11 and 12 with my church, on my own, and for an upcoming study with my teen youth group girls. I’m looking for the mindset behind the faithful men and women of these chapters. Like, what exactly was their focus? What drove them? What did they hold on to and what did they drop? How did they view this life? I found this mindset to prevail: they kept in mind the invisible God’s plan, and they trusted Him, whether they benefitted in this life or not.

Heb. 12: 1,2

1 Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us,

2 looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.

I found this truth to be very comforting:

We are all ordained of God to run a very specific race. God has charted our course. He’s going to help you run it while you keep your eyes on Jesus, “the author and finisher of our faith.”

I also have stuff to lay aside, specifically my “weight” and “sin”–the things that hinder me from running well. Your “weight and sin” might vary from mine, but it’s easy to identify: it’s that thing that trips us up. That obsession or preoccupation, any distraction or coddling of our flesh that “pulls the soul downward when it should ascend upwards,” as one commentator puts it.

For me, it might be electronics. For you it might be an obsession with food, drink, clothes, status or acceptance. Maybe it’s even a preoccupation with good things, like social justice, holiness or church purity that makes you act sinfully in order to get your desired end. Maybe it’s a destructive thought life that feeds on self-pity and spirals you downward, isolating you from others. Whatever our “darling” sin, it must go.

Running with patience is important because when we take our eyes off Jesus and allow ourselves to be weighted down again with our “junk”, we may miss the opportunities God had planned out for us.

And for those of you running an uphill battle right now–remember that God’s charted this course. He’s designed this race to be the perfect tool to make us more like Himself and to fulfill His purpose for our life.

Or, maybe you find yourself under His correction right now for disobedience or unbelief. Remember, God’s correction is always “restorative.” He’s restoring you, not trying to harm you. If you were never corrected by Him, you’d have to wonder if you were really His son or daughter. He corrects all of His children and alters our paths for our good. If we patiently endure it, it will lead to peace and holiness.

So as you’re running today, whether your race includes little sleep due to children, or tears due to a suddenly empty nest, a spinning head because of a crazy ministry schedule, or loneliness due to relocation, God has ordained this day-in-the-race with you in mind.

Don’t compare your situation with someone else’s. You’ll end up taking your eyes off of the Lord. Just embrace every moment as an ordained moment and an opportunity to do what God’s put in front of you.

“Looking unto Jesus,” today and every day,

Sarah