Running the Race

Are there any verses in the Bible that you struggle with? Now don’t act so pious, you know exactly what I mean – the ones where you can’t help but wince when you read them, or they give you a slightly uncomfortable twitch!

One of those for me was 1 Corinthians 9:24, “Do you not know that those who run in a race all run, but only one receives the prize? Run in such a way that you may win.” (NASB) What, you might say, is the problem with that verse? Well, I’ll tell you, but you must promise not to laugh.

The thing is, I’m not a very competitive person, and races are just not my thing. That, combined with not being a very sporty person, is a bit of a recipe for disaster when you come across a scripture like “Run in such a way that you may win.” I’ve never won a running race in my life, and I can safely say that, having passed the 50-year mark a while ago, I probably never will!

So I found this scripture quite difficult. One day I found myself in an intense conversation with Holy Spirit about the fact that this is just NOT FAIR!’. If there can only be one winner of a race – we can’t all win – then what about the ones who don’t win? Does that mean they’re all losers, and how can He think that’s okay when it’s clearly NOT okay?…etc etc.

The reason why I reacted so strongly was because I was reminded of the sports days that I attended when I taught at a primary school in Zimbabwe. The custom in this school was that every child had to take part in a set number of races or events on sports day, as well as running in cross-country races and training a few afternoons every week during the summer term. For a lot of the children, that was not a problem, as they were generally fairly slim and healthy due to the active outdoor Zimbabwean lifestyle, as well as the lack of availability of processed and sugary junk foods. But there were a few who were on the heavy side (or extremely heavy side, in some cases), and for me, watching these poor children being forced to run around the track on sports day in the heat of the African sun was torture.

Although I was happy for them, I was never very fussed about the faster runners who came in first, second, or third on Sports Days. They had plenty of support and recognition from parents and staff who cheered for them. My gaze was always fixed on the last one or two stragglers who were usually half a track behind the rest of the runners, and I would give them a rousing cheer when they finally staggered, red faced and exhausted, into the home stretch and ran (or, if the truth be known, often walked) across the finish line.

For me, it was all about making sure that every child received encouragement and support, whether they came first or last. These heavier-set children would often get mocked by other pupils on the sports fields, and my heart would break to see their downcast faces. So I became the teacher standing by the finishing line, cheering on the stragglers when everyone else had sat down and forgotten that a race was still going on. Year after year, I would do that, shouting encouragement to these children, telling them “You can do it, just keep going, you’re nearly there …” and congratulating them for finishing the race when they finally crossed the finish line. I tried to get other children to come and cheer the stragglers on as well, and that did actually work to a certain degree, which I was pleased about.

To be honest, I’ve always thought it was a bit unjust only to give prizes to the winners, especially when some of the children were running only because they had no option, not because they wanted to compete. To me, the equivalent would be making every child in the school sing a solo in front of the whole school, plus all the parents and staff. The children who were tone deaf or didn’t have good voices would probably feel humiliated, because not every child has a voice that is suited to singing. But then, not every child has a body that is suitable for running competitively either, and I didn’t feel that they should be forced to do so many competitive races when it clearly wasn’t their ‘thing’. 

Don’t misunderstand me, I agree that they should all exercise, and I am fully in favour of all school children doing sports, but I don’t agree that they should made to compete in so many events in front of a large crowd of spectators unless they wanted to. I would have loved to give out some prizes for perseverance and not giving up, for finishing the race, but that just wasn’t going to happen, so instead, I had to satisfy myself with being the unofficial cheerleader for the Stragglers Committee.

Hopefully, you can now see why the “Run in such a way that you may win” scripture was such a problem for me. It cut across everything that I believed in, and I couldn’t get my head around the concept of a kind and compassionate God ‘forcing’ us to compete against each other in a race in which everyone knew that only one person could ‘win the prize’, and where the others were – despite the whole ‘if you took part then you’re a winner’ thing – actually losers.

But, oh, how kind our Father God is! In His wisdom, He so gently (and, I’m convinced, with a tender smile on his face,) answered my questions by saying, “Nicky, it’s a one-man race”.

Father knows how much I love metaphors, and He is so good at speaking to each of us in the way that we will hear best. So, over the course of the next few days and then weeks, He unpacked the running race metaphor for me, starting with the ‘one-man race’ thing! 

A one-man race.

That may seem bizarre and probably rather pointless to some. I mean, the definitive goal for an Olympic athlete is to be the best, isn’t it? The best in the world. Better than anyone else. The fastest or the strongest. The envy of all the other runners. The best of the best. Not just good, but the best. That’s the whole point of a competitive race.

As new Christians, when we line up at the starting point of our Race of Life, as we crouch down in our lane and look down the track, focussing on the lane ahead and waiting for the starter’s pistol to go off, there is no-one directly in the lanes either side of us. The other lanes are empty. There is no one to beat. There is no one to compete against. Just you in your lane, ready to run the race of your life – literally!

Somewhere else, on another track, there is someone else starting out on the greatest race of their life. The spectator stands, on the other hand, are far from empty! They are filled to overflowing with “a great cloud of witnesses” (Hebrews 12:1) and, when we make that momentous decision and say YES to Jesus, the starter gun goes off with a triumphant, victorious bang, and a million witnesses erupt in a frenzy of celebration and applause … all for us, even though we haven’t yet done a thing!

There is such pressure on us in this current age for us to ‘be the best’ – to succeed, to achieve great things – and it is precisely that mentality which fuels the engines of the machine that is the curse of comparison.

I’ve seen Olympic medal ceremonies where the silver or bronze medallist scowled their way through the proceedings, seething with anger and disappointment because they ONLY got the silver or bronze medal. To anyone else, their achievements are incredible, but in their own estimation, they had failed because they weren't the best. How tragic is that? Their bitterness at not being ‘the best’ robbed them of the joy of celebrating their achievements.

In the Kingdom of God, things often work backwards. You don’t just get the applause and the celebration when you win the race, but when you start it. If you want to be ‘important’ you must humble yourself and serve others, and if you want to prosper and be wealthy you must live a lifestyle of generosity. You get celebrated not because of what you’ve achieved or because you’re better than anyone else, but simply because of who you now are – a son or daughter of the Most-High God.

That, my friend, is the greatest accolade ever, and one truly worth celebrating!

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Until next time ….

Some questions to ask yourself:

·       Are you a competitive person?

·       What do you feel about being in a ‘one-man race’?

·       Do you have an inner compulsion to try to ‘be the best’?

·       How do you deal with failure?

Talk these through with Holy Spirit.

Ask Him to show you how He has ‘wired’ you, and invite Him to show you any areas He would like you to work on.

I would love to hear from you! Please feel free to share your thoughts or ask questions, either by using the contact form, or by adding your comments below.