A final post on the topic of life as a marathon from Philip Jackson, a colleague and friend of mine from Macedonia. Phil serves as the field leader and church planting team leader in the city of Skopje. Phil also runs marathons, and his first full marathon was the Athens Classic Marathon.
Lastly, and appropriately, the final message that hit home from the whole marathon experience was the powerful encouragement provided by imagining the actual finish. While running the weekend-long runs in training for the Athens race, invariably I would imagine myself running into the classic stadium and running under that finish line banner. And invariably my eyes would tear up and powerful emotions would come over me. Note that this was while I was training at a place (along the Vardar River in Skopje) where other runners were running along the same path, and there I was with tears streaming down my cheeks. That happened numerous times and sure enough, on November 13 when I stepped across that finish line, my eyes teared up and powerful emotions came over me…just as I had imagined. The point, however, is not that my imagination equaled reality, but rather that the thought of what was to come gave me powerful energy to keep going…to keep running until one day I actually did cross the finish line.
Again, the parallels are obvious. Here is a powerful motivation for us, one that is highlighted again and again in Scripture. We endure life’s long race with much greater success when we take time to think about the finish line or our final destination. One day, Jesus will be standing and waiting for you! When you take your last breath on earth, you’ll walk or run right into His arms and hopefully, you’ll hear “Well done, good and faithful servant, enter into your rest.” (see Matt 25:21 and other blog posts on success)