The Girl Who Ran In The Wrong Race.

I am not a big follower of sports and athletics. I never really have been. I wasn’t too enthusiastic about sports at school and I never really supported any of the main sporting teams. I do, however, like to watch some of the lesser well known and less popular sports. Dodgeball. The Lumberjack Championships, or the Ambulance / Fire and Rescue competitions keep me attentive. I enjoy to watch the Para-lympics. These are sports competitions for the “lesser-abled” in our society.

So I recently watched a movie. It is called “The Best Of Men” and it was about the rehabilitation of men who had been injured during WW2. I’ll not ruin the movie for you but I would suggest you watch it sometime.

Also around the time I watched it there was an incident which made the news about an occurrence at the recent European Athletics Team Championships. At the event, two of the Belgian 100m hurdle runners had to suddenly drop out of the race. If no one ran for Belgium then the country would be eliminated from the championships. There was no one with the training who could step up to take their place. All appeared lost.

But then, Belgian Shot Put and Hammer Throwing champion, Jolien Boumkwo, stepped up to run the 100m hurdles and save her team from getting disqualified. She was totally unsuited for this competition. It had been 10 years since she had done any training at this particular discipline. Her body physique was totally wrong for the event in which she was to take part. It took her 32 seconds to run it - 19 seconds slower than the winner. But she didn’t have to win. All she had to do was finish.

And finish she did. To the rapturous applause of the other runners, possibly the whole arena and quite possibly the whole of Belgium. Her actions will long be remembered after that race. And it will have nothing to do with her being the world Shot Put and Hammer champion.

This got me thinking about the Bible’s analogies about running the race. Various verses speak of them.

            Ecclesiastes 9: ⁽¹¹⁾… The race is not to the swift, Nor the battle to the strong…

            2 Timothy 4: ⁽⁷⁾I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.

We all worship Jesus and share with Him in our own various ways and habits. No two of us are the same. Some of us are academic, others are more skilled at the more physical side of life. Some people are musical and can sing and play instruments. Others are more artistic in other ways and can teach people the Bible lessons in other ways.

But no matter what way we are able to serve God, of this much I’m certain – Not one of us are qualified to run in this race. None of us are. Our entrance fee to this Christian Race was paid for, not by our own merits and achievements, but by the Blood of Christ. Psalm 14 tells us…

        ⁽³⁾They have all turned aside, They have together become corrupt; There is none who does good, No, not one.

And the Letter to the Romans ch 3 tells us…..

           ⁽¹⁰⁾There is none Righteous, no, not one: ⁽¹¹⁾There is none who understands; There is none who seeks after God. ⁽¹²⁾They have all turned aside: they have together become unprofitable. There is none who does good. No, not one.

So when I watched the videos of Jolien Boumkwo running in that race I took great joy in remembering my Christian thoughts. I remembered the verse from the Book of Hebrews chapter 12 which says…

            ⁽¹⁾Therefore we also, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, ⁽²⁾looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith,

So that on that last day…

            We will sing for joy over your victory, and in the name of our God we will set up our banners.- Psalm 20:5

 

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