I went running yesterday for the first time in a long time. A L-O-N-G time. Like, I'm not even going to tell you how long it's been. (Coach Heng, I really hope you're not reading this.) Here's my lame excuse...winter in the Midwest is not a good time for running. Who wants to run when you have to wear thermal underwear? Seriously?
I love to run. Okay, maybe that's not totally true. I hate running. I love the feeling of finishing a run. Seeing the finish line. Running as hard as I can for the last stretch. Breathing hard. Dripping sweat. Knowing I reached the goal without slowing down - without giving up when it hurt most.
I ran track for two years in college. I am 100% a sprinter. (1600 meters sounds like horrible torture in my mind.) My best race - notice I didn't say favorite - was the 4X400 relay. The 400 is a killer sprint. (If you're a sprinter, you know exactly what I mean; if you're a distance runner, you're totally laughing at my wimpyness right now.) It's killer because it's a sprint. And it's 400 meters. If you don't believe me, try it sometime. Go to a track, and run as fast as you can. All. The. Way. Around.
The beginning is easy. You're so full of adrenaline that you don't feel anything the first 1oo meters. On the backstretch, you're flying. As you round the second curve, it starts to hit you. Your body does not want to keep sprinting. This is the point where you can't slow down if you want to win. This is the spot on the track where you see the good runners pull away.
Then there's the last 100 meters. It's a straight shot to the finish line, but as you round that curve the track looks like it stretches on into infinity. Your legs are getting heavy, your lungs are burning, and your body is screaming at you to slow down. You have to will yourself to keep lifting your feet, one at a time. To keep your head up and your eyes on the finish. And, suddenly, you're crossing the white chalk line on the track. You made it. Your teammates crowd around you with hugs and high fives. You're gasping and covered in sweat, but you are soaring inside.
I met some of the most amazing encouragers when I ran track. Although most of the events are individual, our team was truly that – a team. Those who had finished their events or who had a long break between events found a good spot to cheer for their teammates. At a track meet, the 4X400 is always the last race. In my mind, this was completely nervewracking because I never got to be done racing. There was one major plus to running the last race, though. Everyone else's races were over. Our relay team had the biggest cheering squad of the meet.
Guess where many of our cheerleaders chose to stand? Right at the corner that marks 300 meters. Our teammates picked the point on the track where they knew we would be dying and stood there to cheer us on. It is amazing what that did for me. Amazing what it meant to know that others were there with me. Amazing to hear their voices screaming that I could do it – I could finish. Amazing that some of them even ran along the edge of the track with me for 20 or 30 meters. There were meets when their shouts of encouragement literally carried me to the end of the race. (I could have used some of my teammates on my five-mile three-mile REALLY long run today. A bicyclist passed me, and I actually thought, “It would be so nice if she'd just tell me I'm going to make it.”)
I was thinking of my track teammates as I finished my run today. And then, suddenly, another crowd of cheerleaders came to my mind. Hebrews 12:1 says, “Therefore we also, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us...”
Over the past few years, there have been times in my life when I felt like I was hitting the 300-meter mark: reading the test results that proved our struggle with infertility would be ongoing, hearing from our social worker that our first adoption wasn't going to happen – just weeks before the baby was due, staring at the end of our dreams to serve the Lord in the Central African Republic. In these moments, what I was facing literally took my breath away. My legs didn't want to move. My empty lungs and pounding heart insisted that there had to be a shortcut, a way to get to the finish line without running down the track in front of me. Everything inside screamed at me to quit the race – to stop trusting God's faithfulness in the midst of my unspeakable pain. The longest 100 meters stretched out in front of me; the finish line looked so, so far away.
As I thought of my track team today – what it meant to see them standing on the grassy corner of the track, shouting my name and telling me they were 100 percent with me - I realized something. There is another crowd standing on the field next to the track of my life. A crowd of witnesses. A crowd of faithful followers of Christ who have already run the race stretching out before me. A crowd who has suffered, questioned, gasped, and struggled – just like me. A crowd who has faced what I am facing and felt what I am feeling: disappointment, doubt, uncertainty, loss.
Many in that crowd have endured so much. They are men and women who were martyred for their faith, who lost family members or their entire families in horrific ways, who sacrificed everything for what they believed. Imagine the faces in that crowd: Abraham, Peter, Paul, Christians who sheltered Jews during the Nazi invasion of Europe, missionaries who daily risked their lives to lead others in worship.
The people among this crowd of witnesses are those who have rounded the second curve of the track. Who have felt the world collapsing on top of them as they struggled toward the finish line. And yet, these witnesses finished the race. They didn't stop running. They didn't get bogged down by their own doubts, fears, or selfishness. They were able to cross the finish line knowing they didn't give up, even when it hurt the most. What an incredible picture to think of that crowd when my own will to keep running is fading fast.
Although this crowd of witnesses may never physically stand in the grass next to me, the testimony of their lives is with me as I run. They finished the race before me – the same race I now run. They hurt. They cried. They struggled, but they finished. And their testimony echoes around me as I take my turn on the track, “Keep running. We know it hurts, but don't give up. We finished; you can do it, too.”
Hebrews 12 goes on to say, “...let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking onto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.”
The writer is reminding us to keep our eyes on the finish line. We keep our eyes on Jesus as the finish – the completion of all we are running for. Jesus is waiting just past the white chalk line in this race called life. Waiting to take us in his arms and tell us we are done running. We've done well, and we are home.
Not only is Jesus there at the finish line, Jesus' feet rose and fell along this same track. He ran this race I'm running now. He endured – endured scorn, endured ridicule, endured rejection, endured loneliness, endured betrayal, endured the cross. Just like the others in the crowd of witnesses, he finished this race called life. And he is here, along the track. He calls my name. He runs with me – not just for 20 or 30 yards, but every step until I reach the finish line.
I hope you're not at a point in your life where you emotionally or spiritually feel like I did on my run yesterday. But maybe you are. Maybe you're questioning God's leading, his sovereignty, or his love. Maybe you're facing a broken relationship, an incredibly painful loss, or a shattered dream. Wherever you are in this race, know that you are not alone. I may not have faced the same situation you are, but I know it hurts to run this race well. I know your lungs are probably screaming and your heart feels like it will burst if you take another step.
Pray for strength to lift your eyes to the finish line. Imagine that crowd of witnesses along the track of your life. They've been there. They've run the race. They've finished well. Their lives remind us that you and I can keep going when we feel that we can't take another step. That we can keep lifting our feet – one at a time – until, suddenly, the longest 100 meters is behind us, and we're home.
