Running the race of peace and perseverance all the way to glory

“Therefore, since we are surrounded
by such a great cloud of witnesses,
let us throw off everything that hinders
and the sin that so easily entangles,
and let us run with perseverance
the race marked out for us...”

As we are surrounded by this great cloud of eternal witnesses—a great crowd urging us on to finish our race, as theirs is finished—and as we’re rooted on with such a cavalcade of extra-terrestrial power and heavenly glory—let us run with enduring passion!

But we cannot run efficiently at all with weight of baggage hanging from us. In throwing off all that hinders—all distraction and turmoil—becoming disentangled, we run not so much faster, as this race of the Kingdom’s glory isn’t about earthly pace, but Godspeed.

I run, then, the only race I can run: my own.
It may seem hard, but it is all that’s
required of me. Only I can do that.

Godspeed then is about a perseverance beyond the weight and trappings of sin, which only serves to debilitate. It is our task to identify with military precision, a strategy we can and do execute in terms of spiritual self-control for ourselves, plus a mode of operating with others that glorifies God’s witness in us, as if that great crowd in spurring us on, “speaks” confidence in us to witness as indeed they witnessed by their faith.

We are to run in their lane, and by their love, in the manner to which they ran.

We can only run this race well—by faith—when we run as they ran. By faith alone, in the running of our race with endurance, we are made right and do persevere alone by faith.

There is a holy enigma in this, for we can only live righteously when we actually live by faith—which is the exercise of running whilst throwing off every unnecessary distraction, ridding ourselves of every entangling sin that prevents progress in the race.

Through a sound, disciplined mind, through a trusting and committed heart, we make incisive adjustments to our gait—even as we run, and yes, even midstride.

In terms of metaphor then, what we’re doing is learning that this race is for the stillness of soul that is fully reliant on God; a race marked out and called a race because of finiteness; the limitations of time.

The race marked out for us is so magnificently true—i.e. the running track or “the course” has so few blemishes in it—that it is to be discerned by us, in order to give us great joy—that our capacity for faith, built for righteousness’ sake, is only limited by our ability or inability to throw off all that would hinder us.

These are the sadnesses that lead us not to God, but away from divine presence in bitterness and contempt, the unresolved tension we refuse to let go of, and the toxic relationships we remain in.

These are the habits of comfort that add unnecessary weight and inordinate glory to us as we stride out each and every day in denial or anger.

We will know them by our exhaustion. Then, if in running in such a way as to become burned out, we know we are running wrong.

And without changing the unchangeable circumstances of our lives, we subtract our mindset from the paradigm of God that we add—as we take in the heavenly significance of living our lives by faith in the now. What am I saying?

By simply refusing to insist things need to be different, we see that we are planted where we are, because its OUR race we are running, and not someone else’s.

We take our race joyfully on the whole. But then we also hear God calling us to change with courage any aspect that ought to be changed that we can, even while we also accept everything that cannot be changed.

There is a peace that surpasses understanding when we get these dynamics right.