I ran on the track team 3 out of my 4 years in high school. I ran distance at our track meets—usually the half mile, with the mile thrown in every once in awhile. Many of our practices consisted of long runs, times where our coaches would just say “Go run and come back in X minutes.” If we didn’t have a set time limit, we had to run certain loops around town. Practice almost always consisted of runs longer than one mile. Physically, I handled the runs with no major issues. Ask any long-distance runner what the hardest part of their sport is, and I bet most will answer the mental aspect. My endurance grew with each run. I had no problem mentally with these semi-structured runs. Running a mile at a track meet was almost always a challenge, mentally.
A mile is four laps around the track. Laps 1 and 4 are the easiest by far to run. Lap 1, your adrenaline kicks in. You have just started to run, so nothing in your body is tired yet. Lap 4 is an easy one as well. Even though you are tired, you know that with each step, you are that much closer to reaching the finish line. Laps 2 and 3 were always the hardest laps of the mile for me.
Fatigue started to set in. My body wanted to slow down instead of staying at my current pace.
The amount of ground that I still had to cover seemed to be getting larger instead of smaller.
It would be easy to mentally check out, to stop pushing myself to do what I knew I was capable of.
Jesus is showing me that preparing for the World Race is very similar to running a mile in a track meet. Even though it’s been years since I ran in a high school track meet, I still view 4-part challenges as the 4 laps of a mile.
As World Racers, we have 4 financial deadlines to meet. My squad has the following deadlines:
$3,500 in our individual accounts by May 1, 2015
$7,500 in our individual accounts by June 12, 2015
$11,000 in our individual accounts by October 1, 2015
$16,267 in our individual accounts by January 1, 2016
It is with MUCH joy, praise, awe, thanksgiving, and gratitude that I am able to share amazing news. Jesus has allowed me to meet my first financial deadline already!! Today is a day of deep joy and rejoicing!
I know that the next two deadlines will not be easy for me (in my own strength). In my own strength, my next two deadlines are the dreaded laps 2 and 3 of a mile. I will be tempted to check out mentally. I will want to give up. I will grow exhausted. As 2015 begins, there will be a lot that needs to be accomplished. I have fundraisers that I am planning and will be sharing about the World Race with larger groups of people than I already have. Thankfully, fundraising does not rely on my strength, but rather the strength, faithfulness, and abundant generosity of Jesus. With God, ALL things are possible–even the things that I see as impossible.
Almost four years ago, I wrote the following words in my journal, and they are just as true then as they are now: ” Waiting on God means trusting Him for something that could otherwise never happen. If it could happen apart from God and in our own strength, we would have done it already. We would have settled for the fleeting reward of men & their approval rather than the lasting rewards and blessings of God.”
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Do you want to help me “run Laps 2 &3” and meet my next deadlines? Click “Support Me” on the left-hand side of this page.
