“You are always on.”
That is what one of my friends told me on the phone Tuesday afternoon as I drove from school to volleyball practice. I of course denied it. That couldn’t be true. Not after I wrote my last post about being willing to take off the bulletproof vest. Surely I was doing better when it came to this. Surely I was taking steps in the right direction. Surely my friend was wrong.
Oh but she was right.
You see that last post was me going back to the starting line of a race that I thought I had already finished running, but in reality had never even started. So there I am, at the starting line. My tennis shoes are tied and the gun has been fired signaling that I can start, but I can’t move. Because I don’t know what the first step looks like. I don’t know how to take the first step because I am more concerned about the last step. I am more concerned about finishing than I am starting.
I think that is where a lot of us are today. Standing at a starting line, whatever it might be, and not moving, even though we know we need to. Standing at the starting line, terrified that once we start we won’t be able to finish whatever journey is ahead of us. But here is the thing, we are so concerned about finishing but it has already been finished. The end of this race is not a finish line and a trophy accompanied by a victory lap. The end of the race is a person.
You don’t have to “finish” anything. Jesus took care of that already. You just have to start.
Scripture tells us “And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith. (Hebrews 12:1-2). We are so fixated on the term “race” that we translate it into what we know here on earth. A race is a competition, something we have to win. Something we have to do as fast as we possibly can. But that is not it. Paul tells us to fix our eyes on Jesus, not on a finish line.
The race you are running is yours and yours only. You have no competition. It is not about speed and you can go back to the starting line as many times as you need. Life is not a Nintendo game when starting over means you are going to be behind everyone else. Starting over could be the thing that puts you ahead.
You’re starting line is on a hill in Calvary, where Jesus finished it so we could start.
Maybe you are on a journey of forgiving.
Maybe you are on a journey of acceptance.
Maybe you are on a journey of moving on.
Maybe you are on a journey of healing.
You have the freedom today to go back to the starting line and then from there you can take step one. Do not get discouraged if you feel like you should be further along than you are. It is okay, we are not in a hurry. You are not in a competition. We just have to make sure we start. Jesus deserves that from us.
He was willing to finish it. We have to be willing to start.
So what is step one?
I think step one looks a whole lot like coming out of hiding.
To be continued….
