THE RACE MARKED OUT FOR ME

With big thanks to Ralph Anderson
for helping me reflect on these verses.

¨And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us...¨  

Hebrews 12:1

I have been entrusted with a race.
It is uniquely mine.
No one else can run it for me.
No one is competing with me for it.
I go at my own pace...
The pace he has given me capacity for.
I run in my own style...
The style he has created me for.

Sometimes it doesn´t look pretty.
Races have many stages, many stations.
My race sometimes has detours.
Sometimes it has a roadblock.
At times there are others cheering me on
And other times there are long stretches of desert loneliness.

I like it best when I can see others running their race nearby.
We don´t follow the same course
Nor do we all finish at the same time...
Yet we are headed to the same finish line!
I love that.
We run unique races yet the same One calls us.

But some days I wish I could run someone else´s race.
Their´s may look easier or more fruitful or even more fun.
But then who would run my race?
The one I have been entrusted with?
No one else can run for me.
No one else can run it in the way that I can.
And He has created each of us to display certain aspects of Him.
We each carry that privilege, that trust.

I have been entrusted with a race.
I am not sure why mine has been riddled with so much sadness.
Yet there has also been fragrant & beautiful fruit.
I don´t want anyone to miss seeing His amazing grace in grief.
I don´t want anyone to miss seeing hope in loss.
I don´t want anyone to miss seeing His display of love on me.
So I keep on running.

I have run for Him throughout the years,
Through continents, creative kingdom work,
Through pouring into others, through blessing, through hardship.
There have been many curves & plenty of love-hills.
And it has sometimes been very, very hard.
Those are days to ¨consider Him,¨
Those are days to fix my eyes on the finish line,
Those are days to look for the Pioneer of Faith.
So that I´ll keep on running the race...
The one marked out for me.

I have been entrusted with a race.
It is uniquely mine.
No one else can run it for me.
I will run, walk and even crawl to get to that finish line.
I want others to see His uniqueness in me,
I want to hear ¨well done,¨
I want to see Him.
That is why I run
This race marked out for me.

¨Fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith.¨

Heb. 12:2

¨Consider him...so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.¨ 

Heb. 12:3