Running The Race

Sometimes, when it rains, it pours. Locally we wouldn’t complain if we could enjoy a good pouring down rain from the heavens, but when it comes to life, storms of despair aren’t enjoyable at all. I did not write last week, only the second time in nearly ten years, as I was away from home to be with my sister in upstate New York. She is terminally ill, her body ridden with cancer. She and her husband asked the family to unite in her living rather than her death and every one of us are grateful we had the chance to do so. She had unresolved issues plaguing her conscience that only siblings would understand. The four of us bared our souls to one another bringing about a comforting, personal resolution on her part, and a collective sigh of relief. As she lay partially paralyzed with irreversible spinal cord damage from rapidly growing cancer clusters and the return of lung cancer, she was determined to leave the hospital and spend whatever time she had left at home. Her wish was granted, and in the capable hands of her immediate family and Hospice, I saw her last at her home, happy and content. The time she has remaining is very uncertain pressing her siblings and other family members to return to their state’s of abode, California, South Carolina, Delaware, New Jersey and Texas. I was able to tell her I loved her and kiss her good-bye, with a response from her, good for both hearts.
God didn’t put me here to have a good time; He put me here to fight a fight, to hold a battle line. He put me here to help the weak and myself grow strong; He put me here to lend a hand and help the world along. He put me here to say a word of encouragement and cheer; He put me here to sing a song for someone else to hear. He didn’t put me here to whine, stick out my lip and pout; He put me here to do His work and Satan’s evil rout. He didn’t put me here to seek rewards and starry crowns; He put me here to do my part and see that love abounds. So, I’ll just seek to do my part as I travel through these lands, and I will strive to do His will and leave all in His hands.
[1 Corinthians 9: 24-27] Paul compares the Christian life to being in a race. Unlike a physical race where the first runner to the finish line gets a temporal prize and second place is only the first loser, the Christian runs his personal race to get a crown that will last forever. Paul says we must go into strict training, as any good runner does, and run the race in such a way as to get the prize. Running aimlessly in and out of the will of God, satisfying selfish desires and looking for redemption to soothe a guilty conscience, won’t get us to the finish line of life, only a second place of disappointment and death. Solomon wrote: “I have seen something else under the sun: The race is not to the swift or the battle to the strong, nor does food come to the wise or wealth to the brilliant or favor to the learned; but time and chance happen to them all. Moreover, no man knows when his hour will come: As fish are caught in a cruel net or birds are taken in a snare, so men are trapped by evil times that fall unexpectedly upon them.” (Ecclesiastes 9: 11-12) My sister was once again enjoying life abundantly after surviving lung cancer. Back and hip pain brought her to seek a physicians advise only to find out the end was very near. Physically, we will all come in second; we will all lose in the end. Spiritually, we can all be winners if we seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness. Then we can say with Paul, “I have fought a good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith”