Staying Power

                No, not that! Not track season in gym again! The only thing worse than track was gymnastics. I hated running, and I still do. It’s just about the nearest thing I can think of to torture. As I watch one of my neighbors running down the street, gasping for breath, his skinny runner legs pumping up and down, I marvel that he enjoys self-inflicted punishment. But there Dan is day after day pelting the pavement.

            My recollections are of an aching side, burning lungs, and the goal that seemed farther away than I had any hope of reaching before I died. I’m sure I was in need of much more than just six weeks of running in gym, but there was nothing about it that appealed to me—no fluidity, no grace, not anything worthwhile to spur me on in the pursuit.  I just endured until the next six weeks started something more bearable.

            This month marks forty-nine years in quite another race—the race of a lifetime. Forty-nine years ago I accepted Christ and entered my spiritual race. This morning at church I witnessed the baptisms of four young people—Zarryah, D.J., Donovan, and NeCurea.   I was once there—excited, new in the faith, and very unaware of so many things I had yet to learn about being a Christian. But I began as they have, and my hope is that they finish as well as they have begun.

            Let’s face it. It’s easy to begin. We start a new job, marriage, program, class, regime, or diet with such resolution. “This time, things will be different.  This is a better place (way, relationship, or plan).” For some reason we think something new is better and, therefore, easier.

            Following Christ is not only better, it is the best and only way to live the life we were meant to live. However, that life is not an easy life.  For most of us, it’s not a sprint; it’s a cross-country run.

            My daughter ran cross country in junior high. I don’t know who suffered more during that season—her or me. She fought asthma, which kicked up in the fall, just when she was picking up her sneakers for the season. I vividly remember yelling, “Come on, Cupcake!” as tears ran down my face, when she rounded her last corner, gasping for breath on one of her bad days.

Her races were endurance runs, and so is the Christian life. In nearly a half century of running, I’ve run in the mud of life, the cold, the storms, the valleys, darkness, and silence. There were times I nearly gave in and wanted desperately to give up. There were many times when, shamefully, I questioned God, got mad at his church, and went to church out of sheer obedience.  Still, my shoes were on; I kept running.

Through the valleys, plains, and mountains God has taught me much about him during my race. Old and battered, my sneakers have seen a lot of action. I want to keep them on until the race is done, faithful to the end. Many saints begin well, but many don’t end well. The goal is not the end of the cinder track that I hated so much in junior high; it’s the “prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 3:14, KJV).

That inspires me to keep my shoes on. And that is my prayer for my young friends who were baptized today, for my brothers and sisters who are in mid-race and may be flagging in their faith or service, and for those who, like me, may have run a long time and may be tempted to sit out the end of the race.

Keep your shoes on!  Keep those feet moving. Keep running the race!