Endurance Sports

All last week on the corner of my desk, a 3 x 5 index card stared at me with words I heard a preacher say several years ago: 

      “Your circumstances may not change,

        you may not conquer some things,

        but just need to endure.”

The more I thought about those words, the quote became like a wrinkle in my sock during a marathon.  Something was not right.  And as the week progressed, in those words I could begin to hear the voice of Eeyore, the gloomy donkey in Winnie the Pooh books, plodding along, head down, enduring.

Indeed, our situations may remain extremely hard with no end in sight, we may not win the first place ribbon and the accolades of a crowd, but in the Bible, we are called to more than endure through a bleak landscape.  For from that wilderness can emerge an experience of tremendous growth in our relationship with God, a time when all things so paper-thin and anemic fall apart and we can realize His hand, His provision, and His presence.  Enduring means “to continue, to remain in the same state, without yielding, without giving in.” All good.   But growing moves us to a deeper place, “to spring up and develop in maturity, to increase and expand, to become.”   The aim of endurance sports – the marathon, the Ironman triathlon, the ultra – is not just to plod through, but to stretch, strengthen, and go beyond the ordinary. 

In life, God calls us not just to hang in there, but to sow love generously,

                bear fruit even in that we may never see,

       pray expectantly

trust Him in all things,

        and live with outrageous joy even when…

 

Jesus said,

“I have come that they may have life,

                and have it abundantly.”

                         John 10.10