Run Your Own Race

“Run your own race!”  Or as my sister tells my nephew all the time, “Drive your own bus!”  We spend too much of our time comparing our lives and the things we have to others around us. We try to “keep up with the Joneses” or what the world tells us we should be doing, what we should own or what we should look like.

Jennifer and I had the opportunity a few weekends ago to run in the Rugged Maniac mud run in Greensboro with a great group of friends. It was cold and wet and extremely muddy. We had been preparing to complete this 5k and 25 obstacle course for quite a few months, but there was really no preparing for this.

We left off with a large group of people of all shapes and sizes, of all ages and of all different physical abilities. An hour and a half later, our group of 11 runners finished the race together. We stuck with one another and made sure everyone made it through each obstacle. We cheered each other on and we lent a helping hand when needed.

As we were about halfway through the course, I started noticing that groups of runners that were released in heats after ours were starting to pass us. I realized that some of the runners were not running just to finish like we were, they were running to compete against a time or a personal best. We were just trying to finish with no injuries!!!

My competitive spirit from long ago started to rise up inside of me and I started to think “I need to run this again some time and just try to do my best.”  Then reality came back to me and I said, “I’m 46 years old and I don’t need to show my long lost athletic ability any longer!”  I was worried about the other racers and not my own race.

As Christians, we need to worry about our own race. We need to concentrate on what God has called us to do and not compare our Christian walk with someone else’s. God doesn’t want us to race someone else’s race, He wants us to run our’s.

Our race contains obstacles and trials that are meant for us. Some of us go through cancer, some go through divorce, others go through death of a child or a spouse or a parent. That is our race and those are the obstacles that God has for us to overcome. We look at other people and usually have no idea what obstacles they have overcome in their lives or what obstacles they are currently tackling.  We shouldn’t judge our lives to others and we shouldn’t judge their lives to ours.

The Apostle Paul told Timothy in his last letter to him, “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.”  Paul had his own race that God sent him on and he was imploring Timothy to run his own race. Timothy’s race was not going to be the same as Paul’s, he was going to have his own obstacles to overcome. My race is not your race. Your obstacles are not mine. We may go through similar things, but never exactly the same. We must continue to pray for one another for strength to finish our race.

Have a great day and God bless.