Running the race

Acts 20:24 (NIV) ...I consider my life worth nothing to me, if only I may finish the race and complete the task the Lord Jesus has given me--the task of testifying to the gospel of God's grace.

Last night I went running. It was latter than usual, but I started a thing where I run every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, but yesterday for lunch I ate two helpings of lasagna. It must have been around 11:30 in the morning when I ate that. So at 8:00 in the evening when I went to run, I felt so sluggish and heavy. Monday I ran a 10.18 mile, and this time I was going to try to beat that time. Surely I could shave a minute off of my time. Well as I said earlier, I felt sluggish and heavy so after running for just about 200 feet I wanted to quit. Wow! It was so hard. Every stride I wanted to give up. How was I going to beat my time running with all of this food still in me? So then as I was listing to some worship on my ipod, and I thought of the verse above, and how when we are running a spiritual race that is when we began to feel the weight of the world, sin, our flesh, and our arch enemy of our soul, Satan! Weighing us down, telling us to give up and come back tomorrow and try it then. It is not that important to finish this. Oh! This is just to hard.
All of these thoughts are something we face everytime we take on something bigger than ourselves. We start out with a goal in mind to finish, and then as we are running the race, our flesh, Satan, or even other things will began to tell us not to carry on. Satan knows that when we race for our Savior, there is a victory at the end. He knows that in a matter of time we will be that much closer to Jesus, and advance the kingdom that much further.
As I continued to run, my earphones were giving me trouble staying in my ears. So as I ran my focus was turned to my earphones. My pace slowed down and I began to think about how the small things can take our focus off of God our father. We tend to slow down and take time to deal with things that can wait, but we do not let it wait.
So I finally said to myself, "forget it." I turned my attention back to where it was needed. The goal. So I pushed on and I finished the run. Not only did I finish, I beat my time by 36 seconds. What a surprise. The run started off with me wanting to quit after the first 200 feet, Then fidgeting with my earphone and loosing my focus on why I was there, to finishing the run, and lowering my time.