Previous Reflections
REFLECTIONS
January 29, 2012
Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God.
Colossians 3:2-3
The Race
It was a rainy day and the track was mired in mud as we prepared to race for the district championship. But one full lap with poor track conditions would not be my greatest challenge that day. My lane position was. I had drawn the outside lane and that placed my opponents in staggered lanes behind me where I was unable to see them. With my competition blocked from view I was unable to measure my pace against theirs. So coming out of the first turn, I could hear Johnny breathing at my left shoulder. At the time I didn’t fully realize how far behind him I was, but soon it became a stark reality.
The race must have been exciting for the spectators as Johnny and I raced in perfect step down the backstretch and into the final turn. It was there that I kicked my pace into a higher gear to emerge from the final turn with Johnny and I still stride for stride. The spikes on our shoes were slinging mud onto our backs as we both strained to hold our positions, but in the final few yards my endurance failed. Johnny won the race.
There is not enough space on the page to tell all of the lessons I have taken away from that day. I am learning from it still. But the lesson that lingers in my mind is the resemblance of that race around the track with our life journeys through this world.
The race with Johnny was run on a mud mired track. We ran hard and gave it all we had as if the only thing that mattered was who finished first. But later I realized that when we reached the finish line, the oval track had returned us back where we had begun.
Too often we live life like it is a track meet. We race about on the surface of the earth as if our lives depend on the order of finish. But the track condition doesn’t matter; and it doesn’t matter whether we run, east, west, north, or south, the surface only takes us back to where we started. The only point of the race against our fellow runners is who among us finishes first. But there is another dimension we can choose.
Just as the ocean is deep, so is the world we journey through. We seem to avoid going deep maybe because it is not popular to go there, or because of what it will reveal about us, but there is a source of life beneath the surface. Only by going there can we find it. Going deep into life may not be popular and it may reveal our human failings, but if we picture life in the shape of our planet, then once we reach the deepest point, we begin to rise again to come up on the other side.
And that is what the journey through life is toward.
You are the light of the world,
RichardÌ
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