The Race of Life

Ecclesiastes 9:11 “I returned, and saw under the sun, that the race [is] not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favour to men of skill; but time and chance happeneth to them all.”

The crowd is hushed. Silence thunders in the air. Tension is so thick it feels as if the very breath of life is being sucked out of you. You stand at the starting line and you begin to shake yourself loose and stretch every muscle you can think of in order to give yourself the best chance at victory. You walk up to the blocks and set your feet in place. You bend over and put one hand on the ground followed by the other. Every muscle is on the edge of the breaking point waiting to spring into action at the sound of the gun going off. Your eyes are so intense that it burns a hole in the finish line where you plan to cross. All of a sudden, the gun explodes in your ear and all the pent up adrenaline kicks in. You begin to exert every amount of energy that your body can exert. Your focus is without distraction and you’re running to reach the prize.
It is so often the case when someone first begins to follow Jesus. We treat this walk with Him like a sprint race where we need to exert as much energy as possible in the shortest amount of time. This race of life that we run is not a sprint. Too many people have started strong and faded, sometimes quickly, from the rest. Others seemed to start slow, and they have now passed the others up because they continued to consistently run.
Someone that is built for a short race oftentimes cannot sustain for the marathon. It takes totally different mindsets and training. The short racer builds his muscles to explode at the sound of a gun while the long distance runner paces himself so as to finish.
We are in a marathon and our goal should be to finish strong. The coming of the Lord is nigh upon us, and we would do ourselves well by making sure that we have the stamina burned into our minds and our training habits to sustain until the shout of the finish line rings in our ears. Remember, it is not to the swiftest, but to those that endure.

"Not in the achievement, but in the endurance of the human soul, does it show its divine grandeur and its alliance with the infinite God."
Edwin Hubbell Chapin