Run Well

"I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Finally, there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will give to me on that Day, and not to me only but also to all who have loved His appearing."

 ~ 2 Timothy 4:7-8 ~ 

Lately my mind has been on running, it is something that I haven't been able to do much of in my life because of my weight. But, this year God helped me to change that. I haven't reached my goal weight, but I have lost a significant amount and so I have been able to, for the first time, run.

I have enjoyed it emmesly, I can't tell you how much it has helped me, it let's me release a lot of feelings and energy that can't be released elsewhere. The biggest problem I am having is that I can only run in the morning, but my greatest urge to run, is at night. I haven't quite figured that one out lately...but needless to say I can't run at night. I am having that urge right now and so I decided to see if writing about it would help (so thank you readers for being an outlet for me tonight).

Some things that have happened over the past few months got me to thinking about this verse, plus the fact that "running" has been on my mind lately. I think we as Christians think of this verse as a "death" verse, something that we read at the funeral of a Christian who has literally "finished the race". But, I think we should look a little deeper.

 Have you ever noticed that runners always do small races before they go for the BIG ONE? They train themselves and work from the bottom to get to the top. Right now, each and every thing that God has you doing is a race that you need to finish and finish well. If we cannot finish these small races well, how do we expect to finish the BIG ONE well?

We are saved by grace, yes. But we must be different from the world in our actions, God gives us trials and tribulations to help us learn new things, to help us gain ground for Him. If we act like a selfish baby, by letting these opportunities to live for Him pass by how are we getting the Gospel out to the world. All they see is a hypocrite who goes to church on sunday.

Sometimes it's hard to run the race well, we want to slow down or even stop and take a rest. But when I think of 2 Cor. 12:9-10 it really helps me to put things into perspective. God is so good to us, how can we let Him down in this race of life. Run and run well my friends!