Running your race

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A task for the summer:

Read and meditate on 2 Tim. 4:7

“I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith”

 Three important realizations:

 

  1. All of us have a race to run. The race is not just your “life”, in the meaning: “All of us have a life to live”, but “All of us have a calling to fulfill”.
2. There are two dangers, temptations, challenges linked to this: Number one, you are so consumed with everyday life, circumstances and problems that you never get to really running your God-given race. You are continually distracted from your race. Check with yourself: is this your situation right now? What do you need to do about it? Pray with someone, talk to someone, get help from somewhere? Number two, you simply watch others running, this because it is always more comfortable to sit on the side and even make comments or have opinions about those who run their race. Or then you have dug your own talent in the ground, thinking you are not able to run any race, it is just everybody else who can do it, not you. Is this you? If so, deal with it.

 

3. Every race has three seasons:  A season of preparation, a season of ministry and a season of transmission. All three seasons have their purpose and are important. If preparation is what you ought to be doing, give your time to that! Your calling does not “just happen”, without you doing nothing. You need to prepare (=develop roots in God, study (do you need to apply to a school, fex), pray, read, learn from others etc). If you have prepared and should start running, doing your what is your ministry, do that! (If this is you and you need “a field” to start working on, ask God for it! If you need help with finding it, tell me! J) If you have been running for a long time and it is time to start to raise up a new generation (transmission) – do that! Who are those that you can start to pour into? Where are the people, the next generation that you can raise up? It does not have to be many, it can be just a few. This is what Paul did with young Timothy.

Two questions to think about this summer:

  1. Are you just living your life from day to day or are you running your God-given race?
  2. Where, in that race, are you right now (what should you be doing, in other words): Preparation, ministry or transmission?