What I learned from a 5k race.

I’m very happy with the outcome of the 5k I ran this weekend. Seeing as to the fact that it was the first time I’ve ever done anything like it. I finished in 25:48, that’s a good time for an out of shape Youth Pastor. Anyway what I found most interesting about the race is how good of an analogy it really is. Paul was way before his time when he compared living for Christ with running a race. Unless you’ve run in a competitive race you may not fully understand the depth of his words. I’m certainly no Paul, but here are a few things I learned about following Jesus as compared to running a race.

1. Don’t look back – While running if you look back it messes with your stride and you lose focus. You have to run your race and not worry about how someone else is running.

2. Set a goal and run to it – When you start the finish line is no where to be found, so you break the race down into smaller goals and run to them. Then the next, and the next, before long you covered an amazing amount of distance.

3. Just don’t stop – I found it was so much easier to just keep running then to stop and walk. You lose all momentum when you walk, and it kills your time.

4. Don’t judge by looks – this one made me laugh. The day of the race I’m standing at the start line looking at the other runners thinking OK I’m faster than him, I’ll easily beat her, He’s old there’s no competition here. then the race started and somewhere between mile 2 and mile 3 this little old grandma had to be in her 60′s goes fling by me like I’m not even there. That wasn’t the best moment in the race!

5. It’s not how you start that counts – I didn’t know the course very well and in the first mile there was a down hill segment that a lot of runners did very fast. I held back and kept my pace, and ended up finishing before many of the ones that took off so fast.

I not going to go into the biblical principal that go with these because I’m going to use this as my message for 3PY this week. So if you want to hear the message either come Wednesday night @ 6:45 or I may post the audio on here next week. Anyway I had fun running and learned alot, a true win-win.

Later

p.thad