Run Your Race, Again

Of course this is probably one of my favorite topics anyway, but tonight I want to put a different slant on it. I spent the afternoon watching my granddaughter Adair run in a large track meet. It was a beautiful day in south Florida. I think the high was in low 70’s and it was mostly sunny. I spent most of the morning at Starbucks and then at the Apple store for Jennifer. She was on her Mac book yesterday and all of a sudden the letters started typing by themselves. It was either a ghost, a virus, of something is wrong with the keyboard. Well, I didn’t think it was a ghost, and I knew it wasn’t a virus (Mac’s don’t have viruses) so it had to be the keyboard. So I made an appointment at the genius bar at the apple store. So, I had to drive to the mall to take her computer. Sure enough, it was the keyboard. They are shipping her computer off to get it repaired. The bad news is it won’t be ready for a week. They will FedEx it back to her when it is ready.

So the rest of the afternoon was spent outside watching the track meet. Adair ran an new PR (Personal Record) in the mile. She did it in 5:21, better than 5 seconds less than her old PR. Then about an hour later she ran the two-mile run in 12:08. This was also a new PR almost 20 seconds better than her old record. As I watched her run, all the thoughts that I have had when I ran raced through my mind. First, you have to run your own race. You have to know how to pace yourself. In order to do that, you have to know your strengths and your weaknesses. Adair is a great long distance runner, but she doesn’t have that instant blazing speed. Therefore she has to know it’s ok of others to start out faster than she does. She has to trust the gifts that she has to know that she can make up most of the time as the race progresses. She also has to know how to push herself in the middle laps to gain the advantage that she will need to fight off others who have a faster kick at the end than she does. Adair runs smart. She is learning to take advantage of every gift that God has given her. She is learning to know who she is as a runner.

We need to do the same thing in the spiritual. I believe that we as believers have access to every spiritual gift when we need it. But I also believe that we have greater anointing and gifting in certain areas. We tend to be drawn into ministry in these areas. This is like running. Some runners wind up as sprinters while some wind up as long distance runners. We learn to utilize all the strengths in the spirit we have. But we will probably be drawn into areas of ministry that we have the greatest anointing.

Then we have to “run smart”. We have to learn how to believe that God has given us the gifts that we need, and we need to strategize with Holy Spirit as to how to use them best. Once we have His plan, than we have to run the race He has called us to run. We can’t get excited when we seem to be going to slow. We can’t let other’s tell us that we are going out to fast. We have to have faith in the plan that He gives us. Each of us is different. My optimum race will look different than your optimum race. We can’t be distracted by others, and their races.

Today I could see the focus in Adair’s face. Her eyes were fixed on the prize and she ran the race just like she planned. It was fun to watch and great to see her perform to the best of her ability. I know that Papa is watching me the same way. He’s saying “stay focused”; “run the race I have given you”; “good job”; “I’m proud of you”. Just like I was yelling to Adair today. It was a fun day, and He was there with us, cheering us all on in the race.