Life Lessons: Running To Win The Prize
I’ve struck up a pretty good relationship at the gym with the elliptical machine. We get along great. It’s easy, low impact and a great way to burn a lot of calories in a short amount of time.
What I love about running on the elliptical instead of on a track is that the machine tells me anything I want to know; how fast I’m running, how many calories I’m burning, and how long I’ve been running. I can even tell the program how difficult or easy I want the run to be. It will raise or lower it’s incline based on what level I choose. Best of all, there is a TV built into the top of it so it will entertain me as I run. Based on how customized and entertaining of a workout I get, I am amazed everybody doesn’t do this. I get bummed out when I can’t do it.
I typically run for an hour and 5 minutes. I love watching the time tick downward toward zero. I see other people cover the numbers with their towels so they can trick themselves into thinking time has flown by. I like to look for patterns in the numbers. It’s just a way to kill time. I look for things like 12:34 or 33:33. Some people cover the numbers with their towel. I think this is because seeing the time ticking slowly down makes it seem like time is dragging.
Of all the numbers patterns I look for, 777 calories is my favorite. When I reach it, the crowd cheering me on in my head goes bizerk. People on the side of my imaginary road are handing me cups of water. They’re screaming in amazement. News choppers overhead are recording my every step. It’s quite a scene. I figure God likes 7′s and 777 is a lot of calories so I kind of take a split second to celebrate that milestone as I head toward the finish line.
777, however, isn’t the finish line. It’s just a milestone. It’s an important milestone, but there’s more distance to cover before the race is done.
How I can use this illustration in my teaching:
Paul writes about running to win the prize in 1 Corinthians 9:24-27. It’s great to meet milestones in life. Many people reach the milestone of accepting Christ and they stop running. They have faith, but it’s not being put into action. Some people stop at the milestone of kicking an addiction or building a healthy habit then stop running. Churches are full of people who reach a milestone and then stop running. The world is full of people waiting to get into the race.
Milestones are great. I love when I can see 777 calories on the machine for a few seconds. However, if I quit running and get off the machine at that point and never workout again, I’m going to quit moving toward health. My body will begin to go back to what I’ve worked hard to move away from. It’s the same with us. We need to run the race of our lives in a way to win the prize Christ has in store for us. Paul talks about taking hold of that for which Christ has taken hold of me in Philippians 3:8-17. If we stop at a milestone, not following Christ’s example that Paul is showing us, and never move forward, we’re not doing what we’ve been saved to do.
Here’s why I put illustrations from my life in my blog
1. It helps me think through how my life stories can be used in ministry
2. I want to help other volunteers think through how their life stories can be used as they teach or interact with students. It’s a great exercise to go through when stories come to mind. Ask yourself, “What biblical truth does that story exemplify or oppose?”
3. I love to tell stories. This is a great way to get them out there
Related posts
Filed under: Life Lessons
