Recently my son purchased a used game system to play with our four-year-old granddaughter, Bella. One game they’ve shared is a racing game. At first, she had limited ability to navigate using the steering wheel, but she’s progressively doing better.
One evening, I was in the kitchen fixing dinner and overheard her say, “Look, Daddy! I’m staying on the road”. Her daddy’s quick reply was, “That’s the key to winning the race, baby”.
I don’t know if he realized just how right he was.
No matter how fast you travel, if you don’t stay on the road, you won’t reach your intended destination - both in the natural and in the spiritual.
In a natural race, injury or exhaustion can sideline runners. In our spiritual race, something can also sideline us.
Hebrews 12:1 says, “Therefore we also, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us.”
This verse mentions weight and sin as the two factors which keep us from racing successfully. The New Living Translation says “strip off every weight that slows us down”. There are a lot of weighty things going on in my life and probably in yours as well. Some are good and needed things, like caring for family members or making a living. Others are tough challenges, like dealing with illnesses or broken relationships. There are other weights that we don’t think of as that significant, yet we devote so much time to them it becomes an impediment to our spiritual growth. These are things like hobbies or entertainments that are harmless in themselves, but grow to become enormous time wasters which interfere with our focus.
How do we then run the race as we should? The writer of Hebrews continues in verse 2 of chapter 12.
“Looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.”
We stay on that track by remembering the One who paved the way for us to even begin to run on this road and focus on the same thing He did - the joy that is set before us if we are willing and obedient and can say as Paul did in 2 Timothy 4:7:
“ I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.”
