I know you are all looking forward to that great sporting event coming up. That's right — the Winter Olympics. You are not looking forward to the Winter Olympics. Neither am I. It has been so long since I lived anywhere cold that my only real point of contact with those games is the Jamaican bobsled team. Cool runnings.
The summer games are another matter. Growing up, if there was a court, a field or a track anywhere near me after school, that is where you would find me. Later I kept in shape by running long distances, and I have great respect for people who put one foot in front of the other mile after mile. Marathoners run 26.2 miles at under five minutes a mile — inhuman.
The observation is not original to me, but it is a good picture of the Christian life. Not a sprint. A marathon, involving a great deal of plodding. Last week we looked at Jesus telling his followers to go the second mile. This morning: what you learn out on it.
Most people quit after the first mile
Most people stop when the adrenaline wears off. I signed up for the spiritual fun run, they say. Nobody told me Bible study and prayer and giving away a tenth of my income were basic training. They are.
An old friend of mine, in heaven a number of years now, used to say: Kent, we are a great deal better at making converts than at making disciples. Spirituality without sacrifice is the modern evangelical heresy, and the Bible knows nothing of it. The New Testament was written by suffering Christians to suffering Christians. It cost them everything. It will cost us.
You find out whether you trained
Years ago, in seminary — full course load in Orlando, working full time down here, Heidi and I newly become instant parents — I let the running slide. Then a friend called: his team needed one more runner for a 10K downtown. Sure, I said.
The first 5K I was right there with the rest of them. Then I discovered exactly how much preparation I had not done. I faded badly. I finished, barely. The team thanked me for being their final finisher, but not with big smiles.
The trials come, and that is when you find out how deep your roots go into Christ and into the word of God. There are no shortcuts.
You find out what you are carrying
If you have ever run any distance, you know you do not set off carrying two concrete blocks and a bowling ball. You run light.
You have heard that it was said, love your neighbor and hate your enemy. But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you. He sets the bar impossibly high, and he knows it — so high that only people carried by grace get over it.
So I wonder how many of us carry a mental hit list. The people who wronged us, the ones who said things about us. You are alone, or you cannot sleep, and you go down the list rehearsing what you would say to each of them if you had the nerve.
I had one. Not long, but real — people who had come after my reputation over something completely unfair. I used to walk the neighborhood at night with our German shepherd praying, Lord, help me bleed this bitterness out of me.
Do you know what he did? About twenty years ago, in a terrible stretch, I was having a serious argument with God. Shaking my fist at him. I am sure he was frightened. Why was he doing this to me and my family? How was he glorified in it?
Instead of explaining himself — this is straight out of Job — God began to show me what my own sins looked like. Not the kind that get you on the front page. Interior ones. It was horrifying. And it took my judgment of those people away completely, because if a holy God can forgive what I have done to him and to others, who am I to withhold forgiveness from a fellow sinner? How arrogant would I have to be to say: God, your holiness can absorb my sin, but I cannot absorb theirs.
The anger went away. He took it.
Who is on your list? Take it to the Lord — and be warned: if you ask him to show you your own sins, it will be at once the most horrifying and the most liberating day of your life.
You find out whether you are serious
A friend in physical therapy told me about a pilot who had to put his small plane down on a high school football field. Why there? Steve, I ran out of fuel, altitude and ideas all at about the same time, and there was that field.
Ever feel like that? Welcome to the wall. Your body burns through its reserves around mile twenty, and then it starts feeding on itself, and it hurts. Without a compelling reason to keep going, you will not.
If you have been a Christian longer than a week you have hit that wall. At first, prayers move mountains and your devotional life is as strong as an acre of garlic. Then the novelty wears off and it starts to feel like work.
Following Jesus does not come with a holy deflector shield that keeps pain out of your life. When the doctor's office says come in right away. When your husband says he wants out of the marriage. When you are watching the clock turn two, three, four in the morning — religious happy talk is not worth much, and grace becomes real. Churchill said it in the depths of the war: if you are going through hell, keep going.
Let the games begin
The summer games began in 776 BC. Runners gathered on the plain below Mount Olympus, and the emperor led every competitor in a threefold vow: I have trained at least ten months. I will compete according to the rules. I will not quit. Then he lit the torch: let the games begin.
Those men had no idea they were starting something the whole world would stop for, every four years, for millennia. We have no idea what God will do with our faithfulness either. But the second mile is open in front of us, and the company of the second mile is ready to receive.
