The Race Is On

            I went to a couple of cross-country meets recently.  For those of you not familiar with cross-country, it’s not exactly a great spectator sport.

            The beginning is fine.  You get to watch all the runners take off and go the first little way.  Then, though, they go out of sight, and you have to make a choice.  If you’re energetic and ambitious, you half-jog, half-run to a point around a curve so you can see them when they come by there.  If you’re, well, me, you walk casually to the end and watch them finish.

            Watching them finish is interesting, and not just if it’s a close race.  Each runner looks different.  Some of them finish looking almost as fresh as when they started.  They run some more to cool down.  Others struggle to get to the finish line and almost collapse, completely spent, when they get there.

            I admire all the runners, really.  They’re doing something I could not do and frankly would not have any desire to do.  I suppose, in theory, that you could pay me enough to learn how to run that far, but the sum would have to be fairly high.

            The ones I admire most, though, are the ones that finish last or nearly last.  These are runners who know, when the race starts, that they have absolutely no chance of winning.  Not only that, they know that they have no chance of ever winning anything, ever.  Yet, they’re still out there.  They still keep trying.

            Think about that.  They’re not only out there on the day of the race.  They’re out there every day.  They practice hard, sometimes just as hard as the runners near the front.  They go out there and run day after day, week after week.  They keep working, and keep trying, knowing that there is no chance that they will ever win.

Why do they do it?  Well, obviously, they must take some satisfaction from it.  Some of them may enjoy being part of a team.  Some of them may want to stay in shape for other sports.  Some of them may find satisfaction in doing their best and trying to improve, even if they will never win.  Some of them may just enjoy running.  I’m sure there are lots of motivations for them.  Still, it says something about a person who will do all that work and do the best they can when they know that no one else will ever reward them for it.

It seems to me that our service to God is supposed to be like that.  God does not necessarily ask us to win, at least not as our society would define winning.  God asks us to do our best.  God asks us to do it day after day, week after week.  God asks us to do this whether we can see any chance of “winning” or not.

And there is satisfaction we can take from it.  We can know that we’ve helped other people, even if it’s just a few.  We can know that we’ve done our best.  We can just enjoy serving God and serving others.  God does want us to enjoy that, you know. 

So let’s do our best to serve God and serve others.  And when we get discouraged, let’s remember those cross-country runners who finish last.  Let’s keep working, and keep trying.  We may or may not be rewarded for that on earth, but we will be in heaven.