When I was in high school I ran the mile in track. Even though it was an individual run for me, it was a team sport in which all the individual runs counted toward a point total for the entire team.
I never finished first during my runs but I never failed to finish. Some of the runs I made scored points for my team and, on occasions, would place us first in the competition.
As we go through life today we are all in a race that is carrying us through this life and hopefully into eternity. Just as I faced opponents and obstacles during the mile run, each of us face difficulties as we run this race we call life.
As any team player will tell you, if you look back over your shoulder to see where your competition is, you will lose ground and that old stress factor will start to weigh you down as you continue to move forward. So it is in life that if we continue to look back into our past and allow those problems to continue bugging us, we are losing ground on our race for the future.
In 1 Timothy 6:11 Paul tells Timothy “but you, man of God, flee from all this and pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, endurance, and gentleness.”
As we continue our run through life sometimes it is going to become monotonous because we are looking at the back of the same runners, same roads, same landmarks, and the same trees and bushes but we need to continue going forward because we are on the right track. It has been said that if you are on the right road you’ll get to the right destination!
Paul also tells us in Philippians 3:12-14 “not that I have already obtained all this or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it, but one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and staring toward what is ahead, press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.”
If we think about yesterday and think of our accomplishments then this may lead to pride, and if we think about our failures then we may be lead into a guilt complex.
Our goal should be the straight and narrow path that God has for us and at the end of that path stands Jesus Christ who has already claimed victory for us. All we have to do is accept and believe in Him and eternity will one day be ours. What we did in the past cannot help us and if we continually press on with our eyes on Jesus then we will reach our goal.
Even though we are traveling through this lifetime as individuals, what we say and do and how we treat people will influence some of our family and peers and hopefully they will join our team that is bound for eternity.
