#RUN #PERSEVERE #ENDURE #HOPE

"Whatever God has asked you to do, do it well. Your race will not last forever, so give it all you’ve got. I can’t promise that it won’t be hard or won’t require some serious determination, but I can promise you God is watching and cheering you on as you fight to the finish." - Chrystal Evans Hurst || click here to read the rest of today's P31 daily devotion ---> http://proverbs31.org/devotions/?p=4017:  
PART ONE (1)


Run. There are multiple meanings for the word "RUN". I searched to see if there was some other way I could possibly understand what the writer wanted to tell me. Do I get up and just run, dash, speedy Gonzalez my way to an invisible finish line? Or do I run as in running and operating a machine, run a company or run papers through a printer? Run. I am told to run.
According to Cambridge dictionary, here are some explanations with the word, RUN:

  • Run fast in order to get or avoid something. 
  • Run on the spot. Travel, move or continue in a certain way. 
  • Run means to move along, faster than walking, by taking quick steps in which each foot is lifted before the next foot touches the ground.
  • Run with speed like someone that is on a mission and somewhere to go. 
  • Run means to organize the way you live and work. 
  • Run with speed like someone that is on a mission and somewhere to go. 

So, my objective is to run but to run with endurance. Now my goal to move faster, to avoid something, to organize and move along has to be done with endurance. Merriam-Webster says that endurance is my ability to run this race called life, my life, but to run is knowing I have the ability to do something difficult for a long time. King James version tells me to run with patience. If I run according to this scripture, I have the ability to deal with pain or suffering that continues for a long time. In other words, just as the physical pain in exercising, stretching and preparing for running is true, so running our lives and everything around us come with the call to run with the mental understanding that things are not easy, that life gets hard, that situations will stretch my patience and my emotions, but at the end of it all, I need to remember that I can do it. This is what I am receiving in my heart as I break down each word, each space, and apply it to what my life feels right now.

I feel like I've been in this race since elementary school. I feel as if someone placed me (without consulting me) on the starting line. Someone said, "On your mark, get ready, get set, and GO!" and I was pushed by unseen hands to run. But, I can't run! I'm not fast. I feel the need to stop. I've fallen sometimes trying to keep up with others. I get thirsty. I look for the finish line and I think someone tricked me multiple times by moving the finish line so I don't find it or get there. If I run with patience, though, maybe I can jog my way through this, or power walk. Maybe?

 Hebrews 12:1 "Let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us."   #scripture:

Hebrews 12 starts of this way,
Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles.

What cloud of witnesses? Scriptural heroes that remind me they ran this race before me or the people in my life? These witnesses in my life are watching me run. And because they are on the sidelines of my life, and have been there since the beginning of time, I am expected and counseled to throw off everything that hinders me from running. I went to the thesaurus for help with this one. To hinder means to block, burden, delay, cripple, hold up, interrupt, obstruct, prohibit and terminate among other great synonyms.

Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders (blocks, burdens, delays, cripples, holds up, stops) and the sin that so easily entangles.

But, God I am trying to live my life right before you. That's what my mind quickly say as I break this verse apart. I'm not sinning, at least not deliberately. Then, when I look at these words, I hear the Lord asking me, "What is blocking your way? What is standing in your way that you can't run? What burden is in your way, in your life that you can't run and you can't take care of your life and those things in your charge? What is crippling you and interrupting you each time you start to run?"

We may say we don't have sin, but in some big, small, public or secret way, there's always something in our way of moving forward. So we can only move in baby steps, walking slowly and we can't run fast and swiftly the way we need to each day. I know in my heart that we don't have to go out and kill someone or sleep with another person that is not our spouse in order to say, "Oh, I don't do stuff like that. I'm a good person." But, the scriptures tells us that if we speak ill of someone else, we have committed murder with our words. Look at Matthew 5. If we have doubted God, we have also fallen short of where we should be with our faith walk. So, I know that the Lord is saying to me and to you today, "Get rid of everything that has been placed, showed up in front of you, you've allowed to be before you or you have placed there yourself. Take it out. Remove those things and yeah, that sin part also, get it together." Then, then and only then, it will be easier to run with endurance and patience.

Those things that hinder us and that sin that gets in our faces, well they entangle us and when your feet are entangled, can you run? Someone whose life is entangled with sin or hindrances is entrapped, fettered, burdened and compromised. Cambridge dictionary says entangled is to trap something withing something else from which it is difficult to escape. Then, it gives and example of an animal caught in a net. This makes me see the hunter setting his trap, his net for the prey. Lord, am I entangled? Is this why running this race called life, work, family, my home, my heart and my mind seem so complicated sometimes, most of the times?

 Hebrew 12:1-2 Let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith.:

Hebrews 12
Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith. For the joy set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. Consider him who endured such opposition from sinners, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.

Oh, there's too much good stuff here that the Lord is giving me to keep it in one blog. You'll stop reading and not receive what I believe the Lord God has given me this morning for my life and to share with yours. 

I'll end Part 1with this: Run and even if you get tired, sweaty, achy and out of breath, push through, hold on, endure, and remember that finish line waiting for you! Running with you in this race called life and in this walk called Faith,
 Angeline M. Duran Santiago

 Father in heaven, today I choose to forget the past. I don’t want anything to hold me back from what You have in store for my future. I choose forgiveness. I choose peace. Help me, by Your Spirit, to press forward into the life of blessing You have for me in Jesus’ name. Amen.:



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