We are a culture that greatly prizes achievement. We applaud success and winning, not always effort. I was thinking about this while I was working out this morning. I happen to be a Tae Bo devotee, partly because Billy Blanks is so encouraging in the workout DVDs I have. He talks a lot about giving yourself the opportunity to try to see whether you can do it.
This made me start thinking about how exercise is really of great benefit only when it is a challenge–when it is something that you have to put effort into in order to complete. The same thing is true of our brains; just before Thanksgiving, I read an article about keeping your brain fit. The article made the point that while we might think that doing crossword puzzles is enough to keep our brain active, what our brains really need is challenge: we have to be putting forth some effort to increase our brain power.If we can do it with total ease, it’s not really increasing our ability to do anything.
And that made me think about the resolutions that so many make and the examination process that inevitable begins as we look to the spring Holy Day season. As Passover approaches, it is so easy to see all the times I’ve missed the mark. There are so many things I wanted to do better, so many promises I tried so hard to keep; but all that I can see are all the slips, stumbles, and near-misses. It can be so frustrating to contemplate the issues I continue to battle, and to realize that the struggles I face in Christian life have not fundamentally changed much since I began my walk in earnest. Oh, I make progress, but the same personality issues are always there, the same heart failures continue, and the same attitudes creep back in when I least expect it.
When I thought about these things together, I thought about the apostle Paul and what he wrote in Philippians 3:12-14. “Not that I have already attained, or am already perfected; but I press on, that I may lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus has also laid hold of me. Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended; but one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead, I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.“
Those were words I needed today. It’s important to remember that there is much to be learned from the striving. It is not all loss that we have not yet attained or been perfected: we learn and we grow in the attempting. And God, ever patient, keeps on waiting for us as we slip and fall–as long as we get up again, repent, and keep trying. Not, of course, that we shouldn’t put our effort into attempting to overcome, once and for all! After all, Paul also wrote, “Do you not know that those who run in a race all run, but one receives the prize? Run in such a way that you may obtain it” (1 Corinthians 9:24).
If I were to boil it down to one idea, I think it would be this: the idea of a personal best. We are all strong in some areas and weak in others. It is so tempting to look at our weaknesses and either salve them by regaling ourselves with tales of others’ weaknesses or make them greater by contrasting them to others’ strengths. What God wants is our personal best. He gives us gifts and waits to see how we will use them. He’s not comparing us to others: He is looking to see whether we tried with everything we had to put those gifts to good use. It’s pointless for us to look around, then, and compare ourselves to others. What we must do is run with endurance the race He sets before us, looking to Him and not to each other. As Paul wrote in Hebrews 12:1-2, “…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, 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 run for no ordinary prize. We compete–not with each other–but with ourselves and “…against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places” (Ephesians 6:12). To win this race, we are going to have to look to Jesus Christ and follow His example with all of our might. And as we struggle, as we strive, as we fall and get up, we learn and grow and become stronger. As we do those things, we look forward to the day when that struggle will truly be over and we will have conquered all those things that cause us so much trouble now.
Let’s not grow discouraged because we have not yet attained the goal; instead, let’s put forth our personal best and reap the rewards that challenges bring as we work to overcome.
shiningjourney
