Remember Our Goal

 "Let us run with endurance the race that is set before us." 

Are you tired from the long day? If you’re like me, you probably haven’t gotten enough sleep, haven’t had enough coffee, and can’t wait to finally collapse into bed at night. Your friends seem to always need you, your parents are handing out extra chores, on top of an already full schedule. The demands of life often seem overwhelming. 

Our natural response to a long to-do list, at least for me, is to rush through tasks and assignments. We somehow think that by multi-tasking and killing two birds with one stone will make our lives easier. I must say, in some cases, this is a fine solution. However, I have realized that when we try to get through something at a faster speed, we end up having to go back and fix it later.

I once heard a story of a coach who had just been hired as the cross country leader. As you can imagine, these strong-willed teen girls were not enthused about their new coach. She did things completely different than most coaches. Instead of doing the “normal” thing and having the girls run fast every single practice, she focused on the details. Making sure they had the shorter pacing and their strides down. In fact, during the beginning meets they were advised to run at a slower pace. 

Her reasoning for this was that by going slower, you’ll get faster. Since they ran slower at all the other meets, and all the other teams were exhausted, these girls were fresh and ready to run at full speed. She was testing their endurance. These players, and their parents as well, did not trust the coach. It was a different way of doing it, and this was a coach just out of college. They couldn’t see the end result. Success isn’t winning every single time, it’s winning when it matters. 

This is just like our Heavenly Father. Many times we don’t get what God’s trying to do. We don’t understand why we have to go through this tragedy or trial.

 God’s goal is not to help us to understand what He’s doing, His goal is to help us finish the race. He wants us to make it to Heaven,  even more than we do. As we walk in our Christian faith, we are tested to build our faith. 

This is exactly why God has called us to holiness. This is exactly why 1 Peter 3:3 was written. He knows that the things of this world will distract us, and get our focus off of the goal. 

You may ask, why should I trust Him?

My answer is; You should trust the Lord of Heaven, because He doesn’t care who gets the credit. 

Do you remember the story of Jesus healing Jairus’ daughter? They mocked him because he went in when she was already dead. Even though they lacked the faith, Jesus was still able to miraculously heal the daughter. Do you think He came out the front door and exclaimed “Haha, you guys were wrong. I’m the best.” No, not in a million years. I believe with all my heart that God went out the back door. He didn’t want the credit, all He came to do was fulfill the will of the Father. Imagine it, the only person in the universe who deserves praise and honor, and He didn’t want it. 

Trust is a choice. You can choose to place your life in the hands of our Savior. He’s already been waiting for you. He will give you the strength that you need to run the rest of this race. We’re gonna make it friends, just keep your eyes on the goal ;)

I encourage you to listen to this song:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sdu-mWPrheI