Race of your life...are we wasting it?

In today's episode I ask a question, are we making the most of our race or wasting it? 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hey guys, welcome back to another episode of Running A Race. Today I have titled It Race of Your Life, Are We Wasting It? So as we've been seeing in Hebrews 12.1 and other Bible verses, we've seen that uh life is considered a race. When I think about uh my brief time in track, I think about how important it was to pace yourself, regardless if it was a long run or even a short one. Because obviously when you get towards the end, that's really when you want to pick up the pace and make the most of the ending, right? And there's a saying in the world, I can uh get right with God later, I can change my ways later on in life, and I've been guilty of saying that. But on the flip side, I've been seeing a lot of people pass away or things that happen that make people realize, like, oh wow, life could be gone in an instance. I started reflecting, I believe I touched on this verse in the last episode, uh, Acts 2024, and I was more so reflecting on it, and I'm just gonna go ahead and say it real again real quick. However, I consider my life worth nothing to me. My only aim is to finish the race and complete the task the Lord Jesus has given me. The task of testifying to the good news of God's grace. When I was reflecting about this, I was thinking, man, he considers his life worth nothing. His only aim is to finish the race. And it's like, how many of us, even to the extent of we consider our life worth more than someone else's life? We as humans, we don't consider what other people are going through, and we hinder other people's up other people's race, we put hurdles and obstacles in in their way. We see that he's determined to complete the task that God has for him. With that, how many of us get sidetracked? You know, maybe we take too many water breaks, maybe we um we stop for too long, our breath is off, you know, we're we think that something is keeping us going when it's actually hindering our race. I started reflecting and and this verse hit me really hard, honestly. Um just this last week, and it's been kind of been on my mind a lot, and I've just been reflecting on it and thinking, you know, what does God want to tell me through this? Obviously, not gonna say everything that you know God call God told me because you know there there's some things that you keep private and there's things that you know you feel led to share to people. I wanted to touch on again 1 Corinthians 9 26 to 27. It says, Therefore I do not run like someone running aimlessly. I do not fight like a boxer beating the air. No, I strike a blow to my body and make it my slave so that after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified for the prize. When we consider the title, are we wasting our our race? Are we wasting our time? Are we wasting are we running aimlessly? Like the the verse says. I was thinking a lot, like, how many times do we as humans run around aimlessly chasing things, chasing validation from people, chasing money that could be gone in a second? I know that there's another version that says, in the end, people will consider what is right wrong, and what is wrong right. And thinking about things like that, like that's people running around aimlessly, like they're wasting their race. But when you're focused and you have your eyes set on the task that God has for you, you qualify for the prize, but not only that, you do what you were called to do. Just yesterday I came across this verse in Ecclesiastes, and normally when I think about Ecclesiastes, I think about the verses that talk about, oh, there's a time for this, there's a time for that. And this one kind of has a little bit to do with that, and it says, Again, I saw that under the sun the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, nor bread to the wise, nor riches to the intelligent, nor favor to those with knowledge, but time and chance happen to them all. For a man does not know his time, like fish that are taken in an evil net, and like birds that are caught in a snare, so the children of man are snared in an evil time when it suddenly falls upon them. Going back to we really never know our final day, our final breath, our final moment. But I also saw with this verse there's a few parallels to uh first Corinthians, where the race of the swift can tie into running aimlessly, the battle to the strong do not fight like a boxer beating the air. We can take things like I had touched, riches and intelligence. At the end of it all, what do these things matter if we're not doing what we're called to do? Because if we are caught not doing what we're called to do, we become disqualified for the prize. And in addition to that, we just never know when that last moment is gonna be. And uh just yesterday I went to a funeral. One of the last things that this person said was, if I were to die today, I would be content and I would feel peace because I know that I ran my race correctly. And I just kind of was like, Wow. You know, I sat a little bit towards the back and I kind of briefly looked around at a few people, and I realized that some of those people it hit them hard because I think they knew that they weren't running their race properly. And a lot of them, I don't blame them. I'm guilty of it at times too. We focus on the wrong things and we end up not running our race how we're supposed to be running it. Obviously, there's a time to mourn, like how I said in Ecclesiastes, there's a time for everything, but we have to understand the times and we have to know. So we have to be knowledgeable to a certain extent, but we can't make knowledge and having riches and having all these things are idle either. That's really all I have for today. I just want to leave y'all with that reflection. Are we wasting our race or are we making the most of our race? Just a reminder don't run around aimlessly and keep persevering, keep running your race. And I pray that this blesses everyone that watches it, hears it. Make sure to like, comment, subscribe, share with someone who you feel this may help. And I'll catch y'all on the next one. Peace out.