The View From The Bridge – It is a Race: Are You Running?

I hope everyone’s summer is off to a great start. It is a race to get everything done during these summer months. Vacation, relaxation, chores, and activities… a lot to do and so little time to accomplish it all.
Sound a little too familiar? Well, let’s take our thoughts much deeper and engage in a discussion about the race that we are all in but sometimes tend not to realize what it will mean for us if we complete and cross the finish line.

Hebrews 12:1 King James Version (KJV)says:
“Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us,”

Looking at this verse, there are personal reflections and identifiers that we all need to stop and address:
1. Lay aside your weights- What is keeping you from moving forward? When you are burdened and tied down with your personal weights, whatever they are in your life, you can’t move right or leftat all.
2. It also says for us to lay aside- get rid of the sin which so easily binds us. We all know those sins that keep us from being able to run the great race of faith – people, things, habits…we all have them in our life. You know when you really want to move but you allow the road blocks to keep you in your tracks. Sometimes you have to climb the mountain you created to get where you need to be.
3. So, in order to make it to the finish line as victor, you have to run. Yes, run! Run past those sinful activities, and sinful people, too. Our time is limited, but we act as if there is not even a race to run. We are idle, just walking aimlessly without our road map, to the finish line.

How to do we get to the Finish Line?

Hebrews 12:2(KJV) tells us how:
“Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God.” We must know where we are going by choosing to “look” to Jesus who is the start and finish of our faith, but only if we allow HIM to be. He endured for us to have the opportunity to cross that finish line where He is waiting for our entrance home.

“Giving thanks always for all things unto God and the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ”Ephesians 5:20(KJV)- Being thankful as we are running this race. Yes, it is hard when we are in the midst of it all, but Galatians 6:9 tells us to be encouraged: “Let us not be weary in well doing: for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not.”

“Put on the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil.”Ephesians 6:11(KJV)- We have to put on the “whole” armour of God; part is not enough to be able to stand against the worldly issues that we combat daily. We have to be all in.
“Holding forth the word of life; that I may rejoice in the day of Christ, that I have not run in vain, neither laboured in vain.” Philippians 2:16(KJV)- So running requires that we be fruitful and successful in our work. Not just working to work, but purposeful.

Believe it or not, the path that is set before us does have a finish line, have you started yet? Exercise your Faith!
By: Jackie Warner
Career Development
Facilitator
“Impact, Engage, Grow”