September #jammed: Free Grace.

Day 266: Slowed to a stop.

“I wanted to be sure I was not running and had not been running my race in vain.” Galatians 2:2 

The empty pages smelled like a slice of heaven. I couldn’t wait to fill the pages full of miles and routes, splits and workouts. But it wouldn’t be that way this time. This time, the old injuries would resurface and linger.

Today’s verse speaks of running, a hobby fond to my heart and something that is a very big part of who I am. It was only in learning to let it go that I realized I could survive without it. I’m learning, as I walk with Christ, that I can survive without anything …but Him. In Greek (the language the New Testament is written in), “to run” is the work “trecho.”

trecho- by a metaphor taken from runners in a race, means to exert one’s self, strive hard; the word occurs in Greek writings denoting to incur extreme peril, which it requires the exertion of all one’s effort to overcome. (Strong’s)

Running taught me how to exhaust myself beyond what I thought was possible to recover from. The wisdom I gained from pushing my limits helped me to learn that I do, in fact, have limits. My injuries are prone to my legs, and sometimes, I can’t outrun them. Sometimes, there’s no telling when they will heal, or when relief will come. Sometimes they seem to be ready for the pounding again, but underneath the surface, the scars often linger too large to hold up under the weight of my fleeting feet.

trechō means “to run” in both a physical sense and a figurative sense. trechō is used several times to picture of the Christian life in the sense of running toward a goal (1 Cor. 9:26c; Gal 2:2; 5:7; Phil 2:16; Heb 12:1). Passivity is not a virtue in the Christian life. -Mounce’s Complete Expository Dictionary

Passivity is taking all of the wisdom God’s given us throughout our trials, and suppressing it. Barreling on with one solution after the next …none of them working. While Jesus waves His hand in front of our faces to stop, passivity is thinking that we can fix everything without Him.

Walking with Christ is hard. We get knocked down, stripped of things that we identify with and once identified us. People leave our lives. Death is an everyday reality. And if we can’t find God in those situations, we have fallen victim to a passive attitude about who God is and what He promises.

He is good. And He knows what’s good for us. His plan for us is good. The way we identify ourselves is not always the same way He sees us. Being open to His version of who were made to be and what we are here to accomplish starts by believing in Jesus. Walking with Him doesn’t always make sense to us, but we can trust that we are being made holy, one stride at at time, until we break the tape in heaven.

Father, Praise You for our losses and our trials. Thank You for the things You strip from us that we think we need more than You. Forgive our flipped perspective of control, and bless us to lift it entirely up to You. In Jesus’ Name, Amen.

 Get the conversation started by commenting below, and let’s encourage one another as we face life in 2017 armed with grace! 

#greatgrace17

Happy Running …or not,

Megs

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