Run Your Own Race Well  

I have a couple of grandsons who are on the cross-country team representing their school. After their latest race, I inquired of my daughter as to how the boys did. She said that they ran well. As she provided more details about her assessment of their performance, she didn’t focus on what place they finished in comparison to the other runners. Instead, she talked about how they did in relation to their PR, or personal record. She thought they did well because both of them were very close to matching the best times they have ever posted in such a race. Yes, it is good to finish ahead of other runners, but it is also important that you run well and keep improving no matter what the others around you do.

The same could be said about other areas of life, including our walk with Christ. We shouldn’t look at it primarily as a competition with others or fall into the trap of playing the comparison game. Certainly, we can look to others as examples we can follow. Paul told some people to “imitate me, just as I also imitate Christ” (I Corinthians 11:1). Additionally, there are those whose negative examples we can learn from. In the previous chapter Paul had mentioned the bad behavior of the Israelites when they were in the wilderness. He declared that they were intended to be our examples of what not to do. So we can learn, both positively and negatively, from the way others live their lives in relation to God.

However, we shouldn’t evaluate our spiritual lives based on others. We are all different. We have each begun our race under different circumstances and at various starting points. Some may have had advantages in their family and church environments leading up to their faith in Christ that others lacked. Furthermore, we are all blessed with differing gifts, abilities, and personalities. It can be difficult to draw comparisons with others, and doing so may even be a detriment to our running well. We can get focused on trying to be like someone else when God intends for us to be quite different in some ways.

The point is that we need to run our race well, not try to run anyone else’s race. We each have been given a specific course to run and particular abilities to use in doing so. Yours are different from mine. Don’t focus primarily on being like someone else, but more on being your best for the Lord. Yes, there are certain characteristics we should all be seeking to attain. We should all be striving to be more like Jesus and allowing Him to so work in us that the fruit of the Spirit will be increasingly evident in our lives. We all should be running to serve Christ, be lights in a dark world, and make disciples of others. Nevertheless, the way I run my race will not be exactly like the way you run yours. We each need to be pressing on to achieve our PR, our personal record. We need to be growing and making progress in our relationship with Jesus, in becoming a more holy person, and in the work we do for the Lord. No matter what others may or may not do, am I running my race well? Am I making strides forward in my spiritual growth? Am I improving in my service to Christ? I may not be where someone else is, but that person may have gotten a head start or he may be unnecessarily lagging behind. Where am I in relation to where God wants me to be and where He can enable me to go?

So let’s each “press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 3:14).