This Sunday, October 7, 2012 I will be embarking on what I consider the race before The Race.
My best friend and I will be completing a full marathon!
The way this all came about is pretty neat, actually. Mainly because of what I didn't know when I signed up for the marathon.
I didn't know that months later I would stumble upon and then become a part of this amazing journey for Christ called The World Race.
I didn't know that the marathon would teach me lessons that I could take into this journey.
I didn't know anything about The World Race, that it even existed, or that I would even be involved in missionary work of any kind by this time this year.
I did choose this race because of the date….I was baptized on October 7th….so the anniversary sparked me to put Acts 2:38 on my racing bib.
I did choose to run it with my best friend.
I did choose to, ashamedly, be lacking in my preparation and therefore, I may find, that I didn't do so good on this race.
But I'm going to finish.
The parallels are interesting, now that I know I am going on The World Race.
1. For a marathon, you must train and prepare, and if you don't, you will feel the consequences. (I have a feeling lessons in preparation will make themselves very clear somewhere around mile 9.)
2. For a marathon, you must endure a lot of pain and a lot of grief and dig deep to continue.
3. For a marathon, there is a finish line, but you can't see it from the starting line really at all…at least looking straight ahead.
4. For a marathon, you have to take it a mile at a time…if you set out thinking "I'm going to cover 26.2 miles in the next few hours." you'd probably stay in bed.
5. For a marathon, as in life and anything else, you really do have to rely on God sometimes, because even when running shorter distances there are times where you push past pain that you just think you can't possibly handle for another step…but you have to get home.
6. For a marathon, you have to rely on others around you at times, and think of them when running…everyone's safety can be compromised by one person's irresponsibility or selfishness.
7. For a marathon, you move past the very limits of what you think is possible, and find new reserves of strength and use that to move forward.
Consider then…
1. For The World Race, you must train and prepare, and if you don't, I'm assuming you will feel the consequences. (I'll make a mental note to do better preparation for this than I did this marathon!)
2. For The World Race, you must endure a lot of pain and a lot of grief and dig deep to continue.
3. For The World Race, there is an end date, but I can imagine it is invisible and seems very far off at the starting point.
4. For The World Race, you have to take it a day, a month, a country at a time…I know if I set out thinking "I'm going to be away from everything I hold dear for 11 months to serve the Lord." I may stay at home…maybe it would seem too big for me to do…but breaking it down, I know I can handle it.
5. For The World Race, you obviously rely on God, and He sees you through when you think you can go no further.
6. For The World Race, you have to rely on your team and think of them when you act.
7. For The World Race, I can imagine that you move past the very limits of what you think you can handle…mentally, emotionally, spiritually, physically…and find new reserves of strength that the Lord grants to move forward.
Do you see what I see?
Before I even knew what The World Race was…before I'd ever heard of Adventures in Missions…before I ever thought it even remotely possible to fulfill the dream of missionary work I've always had….I signed up for a marathon…not really knowing why other than I wanted to run it with my best friend.
Several times I wanted to say you know what, I can't do this, but I'm doing it…I'm at least going to try.
I had NO IDEA why I was signing up for this.
But now it kind of makes sense.
God is using a much smaller race to teach me things and prepare me for the larger race he had already mapped out in His plan for my life…His plan to serve Him throughout the world…His plan that He had for me before I was even born…the desires He placed in my heart long before the marathon, even…
There are these beautiful moments in the life of every Christian where you sit back and all of the pieces of a puzzle fall right into place, and you can see God's plan fit right together, and everything that didn't make sense suddenly does.
I feel we are so privileged to see these moments fall in place, and to have a God that designed such a beautiful world and universe decide that we are important enough to design our lives, too.
I am grateful and honored to turn my life over to whatever God has in store for me….I'm so amazed at how it all worked out in this small instance…and I know He has a lot more of these jigsaw moments in store for me.
God is good.
Every day has its complaints, every day has its trouble, but no matter what…if you woke up this morning, it's a good day.
The God that designed our universe, that put every plan into motion that we read about in Scripture, that gave Moses the power to part the Red Sea, that changed Saul to Paul for His glory…..He's the God of our life, too. So what do we have to fear?
Just wanted to share this moment for those…which is probably all of you…who love to see God work.
As an end note…please pray for me and all the racers on Sunday morning! LOL. I know that I, for sure, need it! Haha. (Course map below)
God bless and have a wonderful day!
