Running the Race

Running the Race



            One thing that you may not know about me is that I used to be an avid runner.  I was not a fast runner, but I loved to run.  I loved to run so much that I trained for and completed five marathons, and three times I ran the New York City Marathon – my favorite race of all.  In 2017, I was preparing for the NYC Marathon, and I had decided that I was going to run my absolute best marathon.  I was going to prove to myself that even though I was growing older, I could still do better.  That whole year I trained harder, and I was so much more disciplined with my diet than I had ever been before.  I think that I single-handedly probably contributed to the earth-wide shortage of spinach, because you’ve never seen someone eat as many salads as I did that year.  I put everything that I had into that year to get ready for what I hoped to be my best race ever. 

            The morning of the race, I headed off for the Staten Island Ferry to take me over to the start of the race at Fort Wadsworth on Staten Island.  There was a light mist in the air that morning, and the air temperature felt ideal for a race that would take me through all five boroughs.  When my wave started, I stood at the edge of the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge, and that’s when it started: rain.  It was not all that heavy, but it was enough to get you damp.  I had trained through rain, and I knew that sometimes it is a delight to run through the rain.  That morning, it was not.  The rain would start and then stop; pour and then mist.  Soon, as over 50,000 participants made their way through the streets of Brooklyn, we were stomping through puddles of water.  I don’t know if you are aware of what happens when it rains and you step into a puddle of water, but your shoes become filled with water.  After 15 miles of sloshing through the wet streets of New York, I began to question myself: “Why am I doing this?”  I questioned all of the changes I had made to my diet, and I questioned the hours of pre-dawn running that I had done in my training.  I questioned every single thing that had to do with marathon training and running, and it was on that day that I fell out of love with running.  I finished the race, but did not run anywhere close to the time that I had hoped to have run.  And since that day, I have probably only run a total of 5-6 times. 

            Of the five marathons that I ran, only one had ideal weather.  One race the temperature was 22 degrees at the start of the race, and that was in Orlando!  Two others dealt with significant winds blowing so hard you could barely run straight lines.  One thing that I learned from my time of running was that you cannot just choose to run the race with the perfect weather that you want; you can only run the race that is set before you.  A couple of weeks ago, Brad proclaimed a beautiful message reminding us of that passage from Hebrews, where we are reminded that “since we have so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us, let us also lay aside every encumbrance and the sin which so easily entangles us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith . . .”  Sometimes following Christ is hard.  Sometimes following Christ leads us into rainstorms, and sometimes it leads us into the oppressive heat.  But we cannot choose to just follow Christ when the weather and conditions are perfect; we fix our eyes on Jesus, and we just keep moving.  Maybe this week you find yourself trudging along with wet shoes, and you’ve grown weary and worn.  This week I encourage you to look up from the puddles, to fix your eyes on Christ, and run courageously and boldly in the race that is currently before you.