Crossing the Finish Line

In November of 2008, I had the privilege of running in the Huntington Half-Marathon. I had trained for several months leading up to it and felt like I was prepared when race day finally rolled around. In training, I had discovered what I felt to be a good pace for myself, though I wasn't sure how the adrenaline of race day would change that. However, I decided to take a watch with me and try to stay on pace for an 8 minute mile, and then when I hit mile marker 11, I would take off for the final two miles.

As the race progressed, I stayed consistently around 8 minutes per mile. Some miles were a little quicker and some were a little slower, depending on who was around me. One man that I ran with for a while was wearing a shirt that displayed the verse 1 Corinthians 9:27, which talks of beating your body into submission. I felt that was a great verse for such a long race.

After passing mile 10, I began looking for 11, which was where I was going to pick up the pace a bit. However, after 8 minutes on my watch had gone by, mile marker 11 was nowhere to be found. I continued running and 9 minutes, then 10 minutes went by and I still hadn't seen it. I began to ask the judges if they knew which mile I was at and none of them were completely sure. Yet through all of this, I continue to run.

A couple of minutes later, I passed a sign indicating mile 12, meaning I had one mile to go. I picked up my pace a lot for that final distance, confused as to why I never saw mile marker 11. But in that final mile, I was able to pass a few people and cross the finish line in a sprint, getting a time of 1:46:20.

I was standing around after the race and watching others who had crossed before me laying on the ground completely worn out. Others were eating, trying to replace all of the energy that they had just lost. However for me, I felt as if I had a lot of energy left in me. This was not because I was in phenomenal shape (given, there were dozens of people who beat me), but I felt as if I could have run harder or picked up the pace sooner. One fellow runner reminded me that, being my first race, I should take joy in just completing it. But the competitive person in me kept thinking, "I could have run harder. I could have picked up the pace a long time ago."

I think that is one of the worst feelings in the world: to think that you could have done more. This emotion is often felt in sports as there have been many times that I felt like I could have tried harder or given more effort. I have felt similar things even in school after turning in a project that I know that I could have done better on. For me, completion alone has never been enough. I must know that I gave everything I had, no matter what is at stake.

Do you think that this feeling exists in Heaven? I mean, I know that Heaven will be all about the glory of God and worshiping Him with all that we have. But I think that my biggest fear in life is to one day get to Heaven, crossing that finish line of life, and still have energy. I fear getting there feeling as if I could have done more, or that I could have talked to more people. I don't want to be one of those people who simply just floats there way into eternity. I want to be the one who crosses that finish line in a full sprint, and then be able to look Jesus in the eyes and say, "I gave everything I had for you. I did it all for your glory!"

When I view the world today, I see so much suffering, so much pain, so much brokenness. I know that I have talked about these things in previous posts, but this is still what I see! And then my eyes shift back to the church where I see many members saving up for retirement so that they can move to the beach and play shuffleboard for the rest of their lives. Is that the way you want to enter Heaven? Is that the way that you want to cross the finish line?

Several individuals stick out to me as people who are running hard at all times. I won't take the time right now to recognize you on this post but you should know who you are. If you have to question it, well then most likely you are not one of those people and maybe you need to pick up the pace a little bit. But if you are one of those individuals, then I thank you for the ways in which you have paced me and encouraged me to keep running. Let's continue on as hard as we can until we cross that finish line of life and enter into eternity.

Please, examine your life and check how hard you are running. What else can you be doing to advance God's kingdom on this earth? Who else can you tell and what else can you do to get closer to Him? Be one of those individuals who collapses at the finish line knowing that you have given everything that you could have possibly given. Make Colossians 1:29 your life verse, striving with all of HIS energy. He will carry you until the end.

"To this end I labor, struggling with all His energy, which so powerfully works in me."
-Colossians 1:29