If there is one thing I hate more than almost everything else in this world, it is the feeling of losing. I hate to lose. Losing creates a sour taste in my mouth and causes my stomach to turn. To say I have a competitive spirit is an understatement. I tell you this because sometimes when my competitive nature comes out, I end up missing the point and my team leader ends up laughing at me. Recently, I got a good taste of what it looks like when God shows up in the middle of my competitiveness and it is just Him and I.
A teammate and I signed up to run a 10K in Bogota, Colombia. I had never ran a 10K before. In fact, I had only done one race in the past and really did not know what I was getting myself into. My thought was “it’s only 6 miles, that’s not too far where I can’t just show up and run it,” which was only partially true. Up until the day of the race, I had not really done any serious training. We would go run a few miles every morning, but to run with others around me gets my mind into a whole new place. And sometimes it is a dangerous place to be in.
Waking up on race day morning, I was ready. My body was excited as I was about to run my anxious little heart out. A quick snack, a short drive, and a couple hours later I was standing at the starting line with 7,000 other people. My plan was to listen to music while I ran but it was raining at the start so I decided to leave my phone in my pocket and not risk getting my phone wet (this is important later).
BOOM! The gun goes off to start the race. My teammate and I take off running. Now my teammate and is a much better runner than I am. She has much more endurance than I do. We weave in and out of people for the first 3Ks before I realize that I am completely out of breath and still have a long ways to go. I barely get the words out “I need to stop” to which she replies “come on, you can do it!” Now as encouraging as that was, I honestly had to stop. I was worn out. See I could take responsibility and say I did not train hard enough but I am sticking to the excuse that the altitude was just way too high (8,000ft above sea level). I stopped. I watched as she kept on running. I waited until she was about 20 yards in front of me and I started again. I figured I would eventually catch back up to her. The more and more I pushed, the more tired I became.
I was sick and tired of watching people pass me. Because the rain had stopped, I decided I needed a boost and grabbed my phone from my pocket. I created a special playlist specifically for this day, basically a bunch of Christian rap to put me in a good pace and to keep going. After another kilometer or so, probably about halfway though, I still was not happy. I was pretty upset if I am honest. Here I am, a young 21 year old guy running but I am so out of breath and looking around, I am watching guys in their 70s casually run past me. One even turns around when I came to an abrupt stop and he shouted something to me in Spanish but signaled with his arms for me to keep going.
Not going to lie, that hurt my ego a little bit. The honest truth is that I hated being passed and then called out. My pride and competitive nature were about to have a one on one with Jesus. I changed my playlist to the song “Lay Em Down” by Needtobreath. I had just downloaded the song a couple days before the race and it seems God knew exactly what He was doing when I began listening to the words. I now was running with a new purpose.
God met me in the moment and told me that it is okay to be upset and frustrated and competitive and tired. He reminded me over and over that I was never meant to do this race without Him. I was never meant to do The World Race without Him and in that moment again I saw that I am never ever to do life without Him.
My favorite line of the song is “bring all of your troubles, come lay em down.” And that is what I did that day. It is what I did while I ran the second half of the race. I told God just how sorry I was for not making each and every day all about Him. Isn’t it funny how the very first time I ever preached I taught on this very concept, and then God shows up and calls me out on the thing I taught other people? It just goes to show you how deep and affectionate He is for us.
The rest of the race was much easier, just a casual song and a nice run on a Sunday morning spent with the Lord. The second half was much better because I chose to abandon my competitiveness and run to simply be in the Lord’s presence. There is nothing better or any place sweeter than that. This day happened to be a day where the Lord taught me the same lesson again.
