Ecclesiastes 9:11 “I have observed something else in this world of ours. The fastest runner doesn’t always win the race, and the strongest warrior doesn’t always win the battle.” (NLT)
As I get older, I realize no more time can be wasted. I ask myself, “What are you exchanging your time for?” I recall my niece Chandler when she was just a baby. I remember carrying her in my arms and seeing her take her first steps. I remember teaching her how to count to twenty at the age of two; and today she’s nine years old and I see how time has made haste. I in turn dissect my own life and ponder what will life speak of me after I am gone? Will people remember the bad or the good? Will I leave an imprint the way my niece has left an imprint on me. A few years ago, a close friend of mine asked, “Every second that passes history is being made. Alexis, are you making history?” That question has always stayed in my mind and it is a question I seem to brood over more and more as I embrace the “corridors of life”. As I think about time, I realize how much of it I have wasted and there is nothing I can do to get that time back. I think about all the times I was in inconsequential conversations, solipsistic in my thinking and boxed in when I could have been giving love.
Simultaneously, I look intrinsically at my life and scrutinize the race I have been given to run in Christ. With the myriad obstacles that come along with this race, there are moments, when I may not run as fast. In my finite mind, I am striving to apprehend that which has apprehended me. As I live, I find myself veering to the left and right of my mind trying to understand the very thing that has apprehended me, which is Jesus Christ. In my silent soliloquies, I think am I running in vain? Am I chasing the wind? What am I really running after? Am I really running to finish the race in Him? These questions of vacillation stampede the left hemisphere of my brain because this race for Christ can be challenging at times. It is easy to become weary, tired and out of breath in this race for Christ because in most instances, there is no immediate grand prize gratification.
The thing I love about God is His race is not like man’s race. In man’s race there can only be one winner but in God’s race we all are winners. We all get a crown. Although, there are moments we may have to run broken, limping, struggling, crying, hurting, misunderstood, rejected or bruised, FINISH THE RACE. Yes it gets hard sometimes and it appears the finish line is far far away but God never told us to be first to finish. He just wants us to finish in His son who is the author and the finisher of our faith. The finish line is right there. Can you see it? I can. KEEP RUNNING! You will make it after while.
