Race

Growing up in Alabama, I can tell you that I have more than a few friends who love to watch NASCAR. They are as devoted to their favorite driver and racing team as I am to the Arkansas Razorbacks or the Boston Red Sox. And their devotion carries them through all the qualifying runs, the practice laps, and the minute details that come along with getting the car ready to race. They live for the details about how the car got ready to race as the race itself. 

But unlike the pit crew or the driver of their favorite team, they never actually get in the race. I have found that life is sometimes a lot like that. We plan and plan for this and for that but we never actually jump into it because we are too concerned with the trials and problems we face along the way or we get so distracted with the fear of never actually being able to finish the race. And so we never give ourselves the opportunity to build up endurance. An endurance that Paul speaks about in Romans 5:3-5 (ESV) when he says, “Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.” We have to build the kind of endurance that develops our character and leads to a finish line of hope. 

I can remember just a few months back about a project at work that seemed like it would never start and then when it started I was so worried that it wouldn't get completed on time. I was living in defeat from the start, even before the first load of dirt was pulled from the ground, I had lost before I ever got started. My race was over before I ever saw the green flag. 

Every time we make an attempt to accomplish something new or even remotely difficult, most of us have a movie that plays in our heads of when we were younger and something or someone broke our spirit and placed in us in a spiritual chain of failure and fear. I have learned that words are powerful motivators and can be some of the worst weapons we have in the arsenal when used wrongly with a child. Words like: "You've never been a very good test taker." or "I wish you would act more like..." or "You'll never amount to much of anything." or my all time favorite, "You can't do anything right, can you?" The statements I have listed are just a few that I could think of but I can promise you that these and others like them can change the heart of a child and give them a heart of fear when it comes to trying things that are hard or don't come easily to them. It can cripple them for life and then later when they are older, instead of making a life altering decision, they stick to the status quo and fail to fulfill their God given potential. 

God calls each one of us to step out beyond fear, beyond the planning stages of life. While I firmly believe that you must have a plan to get anywhere in life, I also know that you have to take the next step in the plan and get in the race. You can't win if you don't run. And the cool thing about God is that He will be right there alongside us and in front of us just like the pace car at Talladega all the way to the finish line.