By Lindsay Mast
Synopsis: While each Christian must run the race with patience, we should also help others as they press toward the mark of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.
Each year my Thanksgiving week looks much the same: My daughters and I start prepping various parts of the meal. On Monday, we bake biscuits and cornbread for dressing. On Tuesday, we thaw the turkey, make cranberry sauce and pecan pie. Wednesday is more meal prep, but also a non-food tradition: I spend a few hours volunteering for the Atlanta Track Club, organizing the medals for the half-marathon and 5 k/m races that they host on the morning of Thanksgiving.
Organizing a race takes a lot of work and preparation—far more than what most of us realize. There are permits to get from municipalities, marketing and advertising, designing and ordering shirts and medals. That’s all before anyone shows up on race day! Still more work is needed to ensure that people have a place to park, a clear start and finish line, water and food along the course, medical help on standby, and a cleanup crew.
Have you ever stopped to contemplate all the behind-the-scenes work that God is performing on your behalf, too? We know from Romans 8:28 that in all things God is working “for the good of those who love Him, who have been called according to His purpose.” Can your brain conceive of everything which that might entail? I’m not sure mine can.
Think about it: God knit your very being together while you were in the womb (Ps. 130:13-16). It takes time and precision to knit fabrics together—how much more so flesh, blood, and an eternal soul. He took care in the piecing together of you from before your conception—or was it even before that?
Moreover, for some reason, He put you here on this earth, in whatever location(s) you have been, now (in 2022) and however many years prior to this, when He saw fit to have you start your earthly journey. Why now, and not in AD 1622 or 2422 BC? I don’t know, but I believe we can find blessing and providence in being here now, however dismal your social media feeds make it seem.
He has worked out blessings on your behalf and mine, and continues to do so! Was yours a strong family that featured stalwart servants of the Lord from whom you might learn and to whom you can look up? Was there brokenness through which He taught lessons of redemption and forgiveness and overcoming? Do you have money to spare that showed His generosity, or did you have to scrimp, pinch, and learn to rely upon Him? In the long, eternal run—it’s all working together for our good, if we will allow it.
He has also been there beside us when “time and chance” (Eccl. 9:11) happened as well. Some of us get hit harder by that than others. His hand is not just in the things that seem to go our way in an earthly sense. Sometimes only time can tell if that new job, friend, spouse, or house is a blessing or a burden. Either way, we can trust that it can all work to our benefit.
When I’m running a race, I don’t know who marked the course out for me. I don’t know the designer who worked the race shirt given at the end. I don’t know how the weather patterns from a week or more ago came together for the just-right temperature and humidity conditions that gave me a personal best. I know that I can trust a thoughtful and caring organizer to put together a race that will allow me to be tested as a runner while still coming out successfully on the other side.
I also know that the organizer of the only race that truly matters cares even more. He hears me when I need help along the way. He never wants me to despair and promises always to listen and draw near. He may not be moving my feet step by step for me, but He provides everything I need for them to continue pressing on to the mark. Even if the weather isn’t perfect, even if the course gets washed out, even if the spectators leave—He wants me, you, (actually, everyone) to cross the finish line.
At Thanksgiving, hundreds of Atlanta runners proudly eat their pie wearing a medal that I helped put around their neck. I was a small part of their running success. I’m so thankful to be reminded that, in my life, God is working to make sure my race ends in success, too—safe in the arms of Jesus.
