12 November 2007

Are You Running Your Race?

Our Heavenly Father has crafted gifts and callings in all of us to be used in a dynamic way. According to God’s Word in:

Jeremiah 1:5 Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee; and before thou camest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee, and I ordained thee a prophet unto the nations.

Psalms 139:13 Oh yes, you shaped me first inside, then out; you formed me in my mother's womb.


God knew us, formed us and pre-designed us with a variety of abilities that will help us reach our destiny. If we are not “running the race” our Heavenly Father designed us to do, we will never find true satisfaction. This is tantamount to a race horse that is always in training.

Going Through the Motions
It is like a thoroughbred that goes through the process but never gets a chance to prove himself, because he has never run a real race!

He’s:
• Been practiced but not raced.
• Been pushed but not competed.
• Never found out what he is really made of.
• Never sensed the adrenaline rush when the starting gate bell clangs loudly and the steel gates bang open.
• Never heard the thundering hooves or felt the crowding of other horses around him.
• Never heard the deep, labored breathing and snorting of other horses around him.
• Never felt his heart nearly explode from the stress.
• Never been in the middle of flying dirt and mud as they gallop with every thing they have towards the finish line.
• Never experienced a jockey using the sting of a whip or riding bat to push him, with love, beyond his limits.

Fulfilled Design
Both horse and rider have the same goal; get to the finish line first. But the horse has a secondary desire bred into him by God which is to run. They might win the race but the fulfilled design is that he can race and does.

The prize money means nothing to a thoroughbred race horse. Wearing the winner’s wreath means nothing to him. What is important is that he was given the opportunity to fulfill what God designed in him. He might run many races, maybe even win some, either way, racing fulfills him. Even the last horse in a race is technically a winner because he did what he was created to do. He too is fulfilled.

The scriptures say it this way:
1Cor 9:24 Know ye not that they which run in a race run all, but one receiveth the prize? So run, that ye may obtain.

Hebrews 12:1 Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us...,

You can not win or even run a race that you have not entered.

What About You?
• Have you identified the gifts and callings God designed in you?
• Have you taken the time to rekindle them if they have gone dormant?
• Have you worked to enhance those gifts?
• Have you got a jockey or a “monkey” on your back?
• Have you been denied the opportunity to race?
• Have you been in training so long you have forgotten the real goal?
• Have you found and entered your race?

It Is Time!
You’ve trained long enough! Get on a track! Enter a race, any race! The Holy Spirit will direct your path if you ask, especially if you ask. Find that God inspired level of satisfaction and success that comes with being fulfilled doing God’s will for your life. Our Heavenly Father guarantees that there is nothing like it!

All of God's Thanksgiving blessings to you and your family.

Missionary to Europe,
Rev. Lawrence Blakeslee

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