Earbuds Optional

"...Run your race in such a way that you may seize the prize and make it yours!" (1 Corinthians 9:24, Amplified)

“What, no tunes?”

“Nope.”

When you love to listen to, play, and sing music at just about any waking hour of the day, it was one of the oddest responses to a question that I had made all week. Maybe all year. And as my co-worker joining me at the starting line inserted his earbuds, and hundreds around me were doing the same, I wondered for just a second if maybe I was missing something really important in order to complete the race without wimping out.

“Just put your mix on shuffle and go.”

"Throws me off. I can’t find a mix that makes me either want to run too fast or too slow. Besides, I tried it the other day and almost got run over by a car. Not good.”

What I didn’t tell my friend, but that made me smile to think about it, was that I can’t help but want to sing along to my mix, which feels good in its own way but puts me more out of breath than I need to be. Also “not good.”

Sometimes, the best soundtrack for the race—the Journey, the Walk—is not your favorite downloads on shuffle but the music of encouraging voices who’ve done this before and done it well, and are cheering you on through every peak and valley and pothole and twist and turn and straightaway…

   

"It’s very hard in the beginning to understand that the whole idea is not to beat the other runners. Eventually, you learn that the competition is against the little voice in you that wants you to quit."—Dr. George Sheehan

   

...It’s a soundtrack without any catchy tunes, but with a steady, ageless rhythm, and all of it able to get your feet and heart in sync like none other:

“Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, who by faith have testified to the truth of God’s absolute faithfulness…Continually be encouraged by the example of others; never ever say, “Not me, I can’t do it.”

Stripping off every unnecessary weight, and the sin which so easily and cleverly entangles us…Live to be alert, and to stay fit in every way—and keep putting off junk of every kind and keep putting on and in Life.

Let us run with endurance and active persistence the race that is set before us….Remember, it’s always endurance and active persistence, not perfection! Everyone has a life path God has chosen specifically for them. Quit comparing. This one is yours. This one is good. Run it well.

Looking away from all that will distract us and focusing our eyes on Jesus, who is the Author and Perfecter of our faith—the first incentive for our belief and the One who brings our faith to maturity”…Settle this once and for all: distractions along the course will be many—people, conversations, bright and shiny objects, hills that look too steep to climb. Stay focused, and remember to look straight ahead. Jesus has won His race for us and is cheering you on louder than all the rest—all around me like a cool breeze through His ever-present Spirit, and in person at the finish line, waiting with a crown of life: “Well done, good and faithful servant.”

And whether at the grandest of all finish lines, or somewhere along the route—even today—it’s good to remember that running the race well also means that your life always has a full-circle purpose, that you have been put here to be an encouraging part of someone else’s “cloud of witnesses.” 

Ear buds optional…..

“I run because long after my footprints fade away, maybe I will have inspired a few to reject the easy path, hit the trails, put one foot in front of the other, and come to the same conclusion I did: I run because it always takes me where I want to go.”—Dean Karnazes, American marathon runner

Remembering Verse 17

"When I see Jesus Christ, I simply want to be what He wants me to be."—Oswald Chambers

They argued, “Oh, so now you’re an advocate for this Galilean! Search the Scriptures, Nicodemus, and you’ll see that there’s no mention of a prophet coming out of Galilee!"

(John 7:52, Passion Translation)

You have to wonder…maybe Nicodemus had done just that. Maybe he did search. Maybe that’s exactly why he was a tender heart among a group of tough and hardened religious peers, why he had the courage to risk respect and friendship by throwing down the challenge: “Does our law condemn anyone without first hearing him to find out what he is doing?” (John 7:51)

Maybe this same Nicodemus, the one who had come to Jesus by night several chapters earlier to basically, genuinely, perhaps with a bit of trepidation, try to determine for himself, “Who, in Heaven’s name, are you?,” had already felt the seed of belief begin to stir.

Perhaps he had searched the scriptures, just like his peers sneered, and when he came upon Isaiah 9:1-2 about good news coming from the land of Galilee, it gave him pause. Significant pause.

Perhaps he asked questions, lots of questions, about Jesus’ background from those who knew Him best. Maybe His parents and siblings, even. And despite every argument and deeply-entrenched belief held by his peers, perhaps the seed of belief within Nicodemus began to sprout when he learned that Jesus was not born in Nazareth after all, but in Bethlehem—just as the scriptures foretold concerning the coming of the Messiah.

And maybe that seed really began to take root, before the eyes of shocked peers and countrymen, when he joined a fellow seed carrier—Joseph of Arimathea—in taking the body of the crucified Messiah off of the cross, wrapping it in spices and linen, and giving it a burial of deep respect…perhaps, even, of deep love.

That’s the last we hear of Nicodemus. It would be good to know how his life turned out. Why does the Bible do that?

Maybe, it’s to show us that Nicodemus’ slow progress toward seed-sprouting belief is the norm and not the exception. In many ways, it is our own story. While some people do seem to have an instantaneous full-blown harvest of belief, it’s good to know that when we carry the Light that’s within us around someone we meet or know or love, it might very well be met at first with lots of curiosity and questions but little else that hints at an eventual seed-sprouting.

This is not failing at being a witness. This is normal. Stay faithful. Keep at it. And hold on to the truth that what first aroused Nicodemus’ curiosity and planted that first seed that led to full-blown belief sometime later was not Jesus’ ability to debate the deep things of theology, or His eloquence of speech, or His looking the part, but how His actions and lifestyle seemed to line up with the words of Love that came out of His mouth...

"You are the light of the world… In the same way, let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven.”

—Matthew 5:14,16

...There isn’t anyone who is a Christ-one who hasn’t had the desire to follow in Jesus’ footsteps, to live and love and serve all kinds of all-over-the-map people, like Nicodemus, the way that He did and still does. While it’s good to remember the most famous Nicodemus verse of them all—John 3:16—it’s just as important to remember that, as we follow imperfectly in Jesus' footsteps, that we hang our hat, our words, our actions, our very Walk, on the verse that comes next:

“God didn’t go to all the trouble of sending His Son merely to point an accusing finger, telling the world how bad it was. He came to help, to put the world right again.”

—John 3:17, Message

Selah.