The SEND U Blog

Reflections and Resources for Lifelong Learning for Missionaries

Tag: running

running well
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Finishing Well: Running Your Leg of the Race

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On August 30, 2021

In Finishing Well, Gospel

This entry is part 4 of 11 in the series Finishing well

Let’s continue thinking about finishing well in a ministry assignment. In our last blog post, we talked about receiving the baton well. So now we are running our leg of the race. We are now fully engaged in our ministry assignment. Furthermore, we have a working knowledge of our host language and culture. Yes, we will want to continue to grow in these areas as we serve. But it is now our turn to run well with the baton we have been given.

How we run our leg of the race will significantly impact finishing well. Of course, we want our ministry to further the progress of the gospel. We want to make a contribution to the contextualization of the gospel in our host culture, building on the progress of those who served before us. In the New Testament, Paul and the author of Hebrews use the race analogy to describe ministry and the Christian life. At the end of Paul’s life, he writes, “I have finished the race” (2 Timothy 4:7). So, what gave him a sense of finishing well? I see four ways we can run like Paul to finish well.

We Run with a Clear Purpose

Paul’s life was guided by a clear purpose. We see this in passages such as Acts 20:24, 1 Corinthians 9:23, and Philippians 3:14. In Acts 20:24 he describes his life as “my course” (the same word translated in 2 Timothy 4:7 as “race”). Notably, Paul identifies his purpose as completing his God-given work of faithfully “testifying to the gospel of the grace of God.” This goal drives him forward.1 1 Cor 9:23, Phil 3:14 He is focused on the prize awaiting him at the finish line. Eckhard Schnabel writes in his commentary on Acts,

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Crucibles Develop Our Capacity

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On July 9, 2015

In Training, Growth Plans

These days, I am following a training plan to prepare for a half marathon that I would like to run in September.  The training plan is progressive.  You start with running 4.8 km, then after a few weeks, you move up to 6.4 km.  When running 6.4 km is no longer a big challenge, then the training plan asks you to run 8 km.   A few weeks later, when 8 km becomes relatively easy, then you are asked to run 10 km, and so on.

There are no shortcuts. This is a 20-week plan and slowly builds capacity up to 21.1 km as you faithfully follow the plan.   Other training plans for half marathons may be shorter, but they all follow the same principle. You run longer and longer distances as your capacity increases over time.

I have also been reading the book of James these days and reflecting on the relationship between crucible experiences (trials) and our personal growth. James 1:3-4 reminds us that “the testing of your faith produces perseverance.  Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.”

James clearly says testing produces perseverance. But then just a few verses later, he seems to contradict himself by saying that perseverance is required to stand firm in a time of testing.

 

 

“Blessed is the one who perseveres under trial because, having stood the test, that person will receive the crown of life that the Lord has promised to those who love him.” (James 1:12)

So, which comes first – the perseverance or the trials?    Do we need trials to develop perseverance, or do we need perseverance to withstand trials?

The answer is “yes!”. I believe that the biblical pattern is that trials develop our capacity to withstand harder trials in the future.  What was overwhelming for me as a young man (preparing a message, leading a ministry) is no longer as intimidating. But God has other challenges before me, stretching me and building my capacity.   Just as in physical training, we experience the training effect in our spiritual lives as we follow God and his personal training program of problems, challenges, opportunities and suffering, carefully and uniquely designed for us. The program, if we follow it, will bring us to an ever-higher level of maturity and fruitfulness.

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Training to Increase Capacity

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On October 9, 2013

In Teaming, Training

Earlier in the year, we featured a number of posts by Philip Jackson, a colleague of mine from Macedonia, on the parallels between running a marathon and the Christian life.   In that same vein, I would like to reflect on my own recent experience of training for a half marathon.

This has been a huge learning experience for me. I have never been an athlete or competed in any individual athletic competitions since I was required to participate in kids races at Sunday school picnics in my childhood. I jogged in college and in the first years in the Philippines but never ran a single kilometer all those years in Far East Russia. Then about the time that we began serving with SEND U, I started again, simply for the sake of getting some exercise, running 5 km three times a week. That was hard enough, and even last summer, I found that I often could not finish the 5 km without walking partway. When a friend suggested that I should sign up for a longer race, I quickly dismissed the possibility. But this spring, through the repeated encouragement of Phil Jackson, I decided that maybe I should try a half-marathon. I was willing, but I knew I wasn’t even close to being ready to run 21 km. I found a 16-week training plan designed by a running coach and basically followed it from June until the race in Vilnius, Lithuania on September 15. And I finished the race in just over 2 hours, about 13 minutes faster than I had expected!

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Two are Better than One

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On February 14, 2013

In Teaming, Training

Another post 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.   

No truth of Scripture was illustrated to me more powerfully by participating in a marathon than this simple expression by Solomon in Ecclesiastes 4:9-10…. “Two are better than one, because they have a good reward for their toil. For if they fall, one will lift up his fellow. But woe to him who is alone when he falls and has not another to lift him up!”

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