Here's some random thoughts on today's passage.
The writer in this passage is a guy named Paul or the Apostle Paul. He's one of the greatest writers of all time. His challenge to us is simple. Don't run your race with God like a loser, run it like a winner. What's that mean?
Have you played a game or been in some kind of contest when you knew from the start that you were going to lose. I mean, you knew, without a doubt, that you were going to lose, no question about it. If you've had that experience then you know that gut feeling that exist in those moments. It's that feeling that says something like, "Oh well, I don't really care anyways... no big deal... it's not that important..."
Sad to say, but during my years of playing college basketball I had many games when we played teams that were so far above us in divisions that we just went out, took our beating and went home. I remember playing at one tournament where the crowd laughed at us during warm ups, the opposing team didn't warm up, they just walked out to play and at half-time the starters for the opposing team showered and dressed back in their street clothes for the second half. Now that's confidence. They had absolutely no doubt in their minds that they were going to win their contest with us. BTW - they won by over 50... ouch!
The same should be true of us in our spiritual journey with God. We should have absolutely no doubt that we are going to win in our relationship with God and we should "play" or in this case "run our race" in a such way that we prove our confidence, first in God and second in our desire to win.
How do I put it into practice:
- Have a confident winning attitude.
- Don't ever give up, ever, ever, ever!!!!
- Don't run without purpose. (that's what it means when the verse says to not run aimlessly or beat the air) Think about it this way - My purpose is to grow a little closer and a little more dependent on God each day.
Ask yourself this question:
Am I running my race with God with everything that I've got?
BTW - my senior year in college we played for our regional championship against a team that we hadn't beat in over 4 years. For the first time I really believed that we could beat that team and I played the game of my life. In the end we lost the game, but I personally won - I walked off the court knowing that I had given absolutely everything I could to win that game. Several players from the opposing team came up to me after the game and said they had never played against anyone that had played as hard as I had. That's a win in God's eyes and from eternity's perspective - that's all that matters.
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