The Race Set Before You

During this morning's message, I mentioned a mentor within my company who has been working with me on streamlining my efforts to make a difference in and among teams. During our conversation, he emphasized the importance of spending the majority of time and energy doing what you believe in and displaying the brand you want to be known by. This advice helps me manage my activities within my company, and I realize that this advice also can help me prioritize how I live the rest of my life. 

Hebrews  12: 1 says, "Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us ...." People of faith have always had a race to run, and today people of faith still have a race to run. Weight binds us and sin embarrasses us. The collective race we are called to run requires cooperation with each other and with the Holy Spirit. Even as we participate together, we all must embrace the truth that God has carved out an individual race for us to run, as well. 

We learned together that the course of each individual race is determined by God's place, our place, and our pace. God's plan for each person who follows Him by faith is to bring glory to Him as we reflect His character for worldwide impact. How we participate in that mission depends on the places where we live, learn, work, and play. Would you take a moment and journal some thoughts about your place? Where do you live, learn, work, and play? How has God used you or others to reflect His character? What opportunities do you see for you to reflect His character for maximum impact? How much time and energy do yo spend displaying the name of Jesus to those around you? What adjustments will you make to ensure that you are known by the name of Christ above all else?

Over the next five days, would you consider joining me here to further flesh out the ideas surrounding the pace we run the race? Remember that the pace we run determines the course we run. Running too slowly or too quickly increases the danger of our missing out on opportunities and pathways God might want us to embrace along the journey. Isaiah 40:28-31 certainly apply. "Have you not known? Have you not heard? The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He does not faint or grow weary; his understanding is unsearchable. He gives power to the faint, and to him who has no might he increases strength. Even youths shall faint and be weary, and young men shall fall exhausted; but they who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; the shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint." (ESV)