Is It a Marathon – Or a Relay Race?

How many times have you heard someone say, “Life is a marathon, not a sprint”? Maybe it’s a cliché, but it’s still true. A sprint starts and finishes very quickly, but a marathon is a long, grueling race, requiring perseverance, endurance and determination. A lot like everyday life, right?

 

However, recently I started considering the “race of life” differently. In Kingdom Men, pastor Tony Evans used another metaphor from the world of track and field – a relay race. Unlike an individual participating alone, a relay race competitor must transfer a baton to a teammate. In all, the baton is passed three times in the team’s attempt to reach the finish line first.

Evans cited the 2008 Summer Olympic Games, in which both the U.S. men’s and women’s 4 x 100-meter relay teams were heavily favored to win. Unfortunately, both teams dropped their batons in their semifinal races, resulting in their disqualification. Total failure because of inability to pass their batons successfully.

 

We see this baton-passing analogy often in the business world. As an author, I’ve had the privilege of researching and writing books about three family-owned, mutli-generational companies. Two have reached the fourth generation of continuous family leadership, but they are the exception. 

 

Statistically, less than one-third of family businesses survive to the second generation; only 15% are successful to a third generation, and less than 4% survive to the fourth generation. The values, visions and missions these companies once cherished were lost – their batons were dropped – somewhere along the way.

 

“But I’m not a business owner” we might be thinking. Maybe so. But if we are parents or grandparents, we’re carrying figurative batons we hope to pass along to our children and grandchildren. I’m not referring to a material inheritance. I’m thinking of the family traditions, values, and beliefs we’ve established and modeled through the years.

 

The most important “baton” of all is a heritage of faith. Moses had this in mind when he told the people of Israel:

“These are the commands, decrees and laws the Lord your God directed me to teach you to observe in the land that you are crossing the Jordan to possess, so that you, your children and their children after them may fear the Lord your God as long as you live by keeping all His decrees and commands that I give you, and so that you may enjoy long life” (Deuteronomy 6:1-2).

 

The apostle Paul conveyed a similar idea when he exhorted Timothy, the young man he had been discipling, “And the things you have heard me say in the presence of many witnesses entrust to reliable men who will also be qualified to teach others” (2 Timothy 2:2). In this single verse the spiritual baton is passed three times, from Paul to Timothy, then to “reliable [faithful] men,” and then to “others.”

 

When Jesus Christ commissioned His 12 disciples to, “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations” (Matthew 28:19), He had in mind mature believers who not only spoke the truth but lived it out in ways that others could understand and emulate. This is important because the outdated adage, “Do as I say, not as I do,” is hardly an effective way for leading. Or for successfully passing batons of faith. If we don’t live out what we profess, do we really believe it?

 

Paul had no idea that many centuries later two accomplished relay teams would lose their coveted gold medals because they failed to pass their batons. He might not have used the terms, but desperately wanted to finish well – and complete his own “relay race” successfully.

 

He wrote, “Do you not know that those who run in a race all run, but only one receives the prize? Run in such a way that you may win” (1 Corinthians 9:24). Then a few verses later the apostle stated, “But I discipline my body and make it my slave, so that, after I have preached to others, I myself might not be disqualified” (1 Corinthians 9:27).

Our lives indeed look like an arduous marathon. But perhaps it would help also to see it as a relay race, in which we’re carrying a baton and preparing to hand it off to a son or daughter, the person who one day will take over the job we’ve been doing, or someone we’ve been mentoring or discipling. Let’s pray that with God’s wisdom, strength and direction, we won’t drop the baton.  

What’s In a Name? Why Do Names Matter?

'A rose by any other name...'

“What’s in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.” You probably recognize that famous quote from William Shakespeare’s play, “Romeo and Juliet,” about two ill-fated lovers. Juliet was right for the most part. When we hear the word “rose,” certain images and fragrances come to mind. But what if that beautiful flower instead had been called, let’s say, a ‘bumschnozel’?

Names are amazing things, actually. When I was growing up, names like Robert, Leonard, Karen, Elizabeth, Edward, Nancy, Charles and Eileen were popular. Today, not so much. Now kids have names like Sloan, Avery, Maclane, Ryan, Peyton and Ellis – all of which are interchangeable for boys or girls. We also have monikers like River, North, Bear, and Jett. But what is in a name?

 

In the Bible, names are a central part of practically everything that transpires. In the creation account, when God formed the first human, He named him Adam, which means “son of red earth” from the Hebrew word “adamah.” This ties in with Genesis 2:7, which tells us “The Lord formed the man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.”

 

There was great significance to this first human name, hardly a flippant decision like “Let’s call him Butch, or Bubba.” 

 

The saga of biblical naming was just starting. Next, God assigned Adam the responsibility for naming all the animals. “Now the Lord God had formed out of the ground all the beasts of the field and all the birds of the air. He brought them to the man to see what he would name them; and whatever the man called each living creature, that was its name…” (Genesis 2:19-20).

 

Can you imagine that scene? Adam looks and decides, “Let’s call that one a platypus.” He sees a hulking, horned beast and says, “How about, rhinoceros?” He reaches out to pet an animal and quickly jumps back: “Ouch, uh, that’s a porcupine!” Aardvark, hyena, hippopotamus, eagle, elephant. Seems Adam was the first name-caller.

 

The most important first name was yet to come. After God determined none of the animals was a suitable helper and companion for Adam, He fashioned the first woman from one of the first man’s ribs. Adam responds with the biblical equivalent of “Shazam!,” declaring, “This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called ‘woman,’ for she was taken out of man” (Genesis 2:23). In the Hebrew it’s “ish” and “isha.”

 

Next we read about Adam giving her a proper name. ”Adam named his wife Eve, because she would become the mother of all the living” (Genesis 3:20).

 

This “name game” was just gaining momentum. Genesis 17:5 tells about a prominent fellow named Abram receiving a new name, Abraham, which means “the father of a multitude of nations” (Genesis 17:5). His wife, Sarai, also is given a new name, Sarah, meaning “princess,” also signifying “[God] will bless her and will surely give you a son by her…she will be the mother of nations; kings of peoples will come from her” (Genesis 17:15).

 

Together they beget Isaac, who becomes the father of two sons. One of them, Jacob, is renamed Israel, “because you have struggled with God and with men and have overcome” (Genesis 32:28), following a curious all-night wrestling match with a “man” near a stream called Jabbok.

 

The list of individuals given new names by God in the Scriptures goes on and on. In the New Testament, one of the disciples, Simon, is given the name Peter, which means “rock.” After his dramatic encounter with Jesus on the Damascus Road, Saul appropriately receives the new name, Paul, reflecting his spiritual transformation.

 

What’s most significant about this ongoing renaming process, pastor and author Tony Evans observes, is “Each name change was a symbol of God’s reality and identity…a spoken expression of who these individuals were and how God was using them.”

 

In the Bible, however, no name compares to “the name that is above every name” (Philippians 2:9) – which is Jesus Christ, the Son of God and the long-promised Messiah. How important and powerful is that name? The next verses, Philippians 2:10-11, give the answer: “that at the name of Jesus, every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”

 

When I read this, I envision Christ making His long-awaited return and, as the passage states, every knee bowing and every tongue confessing that He is Lord. Both believers and non-believers will do this; believers out of joy and reverence, and non-believers out of deep remorse, overwhelming awe, and perhaps great fear for having rejected Him and His offer of salvation and redemption.

In the words of the old hymn, “Jesus, Jesus, Jesus – there’s just something about that name.” Today, some people use His name as a profanity, but when He returns the Scriptures assure us that everyone will worship and acknowledge He is indeed Lord, to the glory of God the Father. 

Seeing Through the Windshield, Not the Rearview Mirror

Things usually are designed as they are for a specific reason. “Form follows function,” the architectural and industrial design adage declares. The function or purpose of a chair is to support people sitting on it. After that, the furniture designer can decide what form the chair should take. The function of a car is to transport riders from one place to another. Once that purpose is achieved, automotive designers can figure out how to visually impress potential buyers. 

 

Form follows function. This principle came to mind while reading an entry in pastor and author Tony Evans’s Kingdom Man devotional book. He observed, “Do you know why a car’s windshield is bigger than its rearview mirror? Because where you are going is more important than where you’ve been.”

 

Simple wisdom, but profound. Unless you’re backing out of your garage or driveway, trying to steer your car while staring into the rearview mirror would be utter foolishness. Not to mention extremely dangerous, especially if you’re on the highway. Keep looking ahead! And yet, persisting to hold a rearview perspective is how many people are living their lives.

 

These folks let memories and regrets from the past dominate their days, coloring their present and shaping their future. I regard it as the “woulda, coulda, shoulda syndrome.” “If I would have done that, then this wouldn’t have happened.” “I could have chosen to do that; then I wouldn’t be where I am now.” “I should have decided to do (whatever) instead of what I did – then everything would have been different.”

 

Understandably, there’s not one of us who if given the opportunity wouldn’t change some key events or decisions in our past. The person who says, “I wouldn’t change a single thing about my life,” is either in denial or unrealistic. We all have regrets to some extent. But the simple fact is we can’t change the past. Time machines don’t exist, and even if they did, changing even a slight detail might have catastrophic consequences. Science-fiction writers call it “the butterfly effect.”

 

The best we can do is learn from the past and strive to do better in the present and time yet to come. In sports they say to be successful, a baseball pitcher or quarterback in football must have a short memory. They can’t dwell on the pitch just thrown that went over the fence for a home run, or the pass that was intercepted during the last drive. They must ignore the mistake and move on to the next pitch or play.

 

Pastor Evans added this comment: “I’m not saying yesterday is a bad conversation topic, but you don’t want to get stuck there. Yesterday’s victories will not carry you through today. Yesterday’s defeats should not dominate tomorrow.”

 

I think this is why the Bible has such forward-thinking focus. Even in Genesis, the Bible’s first book, there are many references to forthcoming events, biblical “types” that foreshadow God’s actions in the future. The Old Testament includes a series of prophetic books. And the last book of the Bible, Revelation, is filled with prophesies yet to come.

 

The apostle Paul was a man whose life could have been ruined by “rear view mirror living.” A zealous Pharisee and acclaimed religious leader, he had eagerly persecuted early Christians, even gladly spectating at the stoning of the apostle Stephen. After his dramatic Damascus Road conversion, Paul never forgot what he had done, always marveling at the incredible forgiveness, grace and mercy of God. 

 

However, rather than dwelling on his past, he was able to write, “…I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead. I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 3:13-14).

 

Apparently somewhat of a sports fan, he often used athletic metaphors. In 1 Corinthians 9:24-27 he wrote, “Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one gets the prize? Run in such a way as to get the prize…. Therefore I do not run like a man running aimlessly. I do not fight like a man beating the air. No, I beat my body and make it my slave so that after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified for the prize.”

 

While the apostle does not comment specifically on looking backward, he certainly understood that winning racers can’t be concentrating on portions of the course they’ve already passed. In a similar way, to live in a way that honors God we must learn to let go of the past – its failures and pain, as well as its successes and joys – as we pursue what the Lord has for us now and the days to come.

If anyone has a clear view of the past, it’s God. Still, He gives us this promise: “For I know the plans I have for you…plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future” (Jeremiah 29:11). He can take our past, even in wrecked form, and make it functional for a glorious future. 

God Wants to Give Us Our Heart’s Desires

How would you react to receiving an absolute guarantee that God wants to give you your heart’s desire? Who wouldn’t want that, right?

 

When you consider the idea that God truly wants to give you your heart’s desire, what pops into your mind? Some might want to immediately start compiling a personal wish list to offer up in prayer. Others, however, might think this post is about to venture into the realm of so-called “prosperity theology” or the “name-it-and-claim-it” mentality. 

We find it fairly common in our American consumer-oriented way of thinking to equate God’s blessings with material things. Stuff like cars, houses, vacations, other forms of affluence. But that view is more of a cultural perspective than a biblical one. 

 

Consider this: If theological interpretations are to be true and biblical, they should apply to people universally, regardless of their status or citizenry, don’t you think? Biblical truth must apply to “Third World” believers – folks living in Bangladesh, an impoverished village in India, the barrios of Mexico City or the favelas of Sao Paolo, Brazil – as well as people living in more materially rich “first world” nations. 

 

So, it’s hard to see how a declaration, “God wants you to be rich!” relates to a devoted Christ follower struggling day-to-day in an impoverished region. That doesn’t mean God can’t bestow material gifts on His people, because He can and often does. But if Jesus Christ, the Son of God, had “no place to lay His head” (Matthew 8:20), why should we think we’re above that? Why should we conclude that if being His follower defines us  “children of the King,” the Lord is obligated to bless us with fancy homes and lavish lifestyles?

 

Wait. Didn’t I start off by saying the Lord wants to give us the desires of our hearts? Yes, I did. And He does. How do we know this? Because Psalm 37:4 says so: “Delight yourself in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart.” But let’s hit the pause button for a moment. Before taking that promise “to the bank” so to speak, let’s look more deeply at the rest of the psalm.

 

Psalm 37, written by King David, also declares we’re to “Trust in the Lord and do good.” It says we’re to “Delight yourself in the Lord…. Commit your way to the Lord, trust in Him…” (verses 3-5). Those statements are equally important because Bible scholars know to properly understand a passage in the Scriptures, or even specific words, we can’t ignore the context in which they appear.

 

I like the way pastor and author Tony Evans expresses it in his book, Kingdom Man Devotional. He wrote, “If [God’s] words are abiding in you, His wishes will become your wishes, and He will ‘give you the desires of your heart’ (Psalm 37:4), because your desires will be His desires.”

 

This can work in a variety of ways. Suppose a Christ-centered physician has built a thriving practice and has been generous supporting charitable causes. But one day he senses God is calling him to give all that up. Instead, the doctor senses the Lord is leading him to become a medical missionary, dependent on the financial support of others. Suddenly, the “desire of his heart” has changed.

 

I’ve known of many highly successful business and professional people who before committing their lives to Christ were intent upon building impressive financial portfolios. After He became Lord of their lives, however, their focus shifted to giving away as much of their wealth as possible. Industrialist R.G. LeTourneau and inventor/entrepreneur Stanley Tam come immediately to mind. God gave them the “desire of their heart,” but very different from what it once was.

 

A number of couples I know have had the joy of adopting children, For some it was because of being unable to have biological children or their own; others wanted to add to their biological families through adoption. This wasn’t their original plan, but again, God gave them the desire of their hearts and they wouldn’t have it any other way.

 

Early in my journalistic career, the plan was to climb the ranks and become a newspaper executive, wherever that would lead me and my family. But God had other ideas. He closed all doors except for one, a parachurch ministry called CBMC, through which He presented opportunities I couldn’t have imagined. He bountifully gave me the desires of my heart, even though I didn’t realize it at the time.

 

The list of examples could go on, but the point is clear: When God gives us the desires of our hearts, they aren’t shaped by our self-centered wants and wishes. He changes our hearts and prompts us to embrace what He wants for us because, as Romans 8:28 declares, “we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose.” How comforting is that?

Do You Sometimes Feel ‘Tore Up From the Floor Up’?

Since I often listen to some powerful messages on Christian radio, from time to time certain terms or phrases stick in my mind. One example was the speaker – I think it was Dr. Tony Evans – who talked about feeling “tore up from the floor up.” ‘Yep,’ I thought, ‘I’ve known that feeling well.’

 

Maybe that’s a phrase you’re familiar with, but it struck a chord with me. I don’t recall the exact context of his comment, but we live in a broken world, and its cracks are showing more pronounced by the day. If you want to ruin your day practically before it starts, just turn on the news when you wake up. Between the latest Covid-19 scares, natural disasters, climate change declarations, grim economic reports, wars and rumors of wars, there’s enough to keep our anxiety levels maxed out.

 

Then we have our normal lives. Things can seem to be sailing along smoothly until some unexpected crisis jolts us out of our reverie and we’re plunged into uncertainty, maybe even despair. Health, finances, and relationships have a particularly annoying way of doing that. I think of a pastor in another state who’s been faithfully carrying out his calling, only to learn his teen-aged son is suffering from a devastating, potentially life-threatening disease.

 

So yes, it’s not unusual to feel “tore up from the floor up.”

 

How do we handle this? Do we just “deal with it” as best we can or “suck it up,” as they say in the sports world? Or do we scream and shout, snipping at every unsuspecting individual who has the misfortune of passing our way? Should we fall into a fetal position and wallow in self-pity?

 

One of the benefits of reading the Scriptures is they present us with an honest, unvarnished look at people, including a man described as having “a heart after God,” Israel’s King David. We’d think that being a king would be a fairly comfortable position, but he too understood very well the “tore up from the ground up” sensation.

 

Psalm 5, which he wrote, starts off with these words: “Give ear to my words, O Lord, consider my sighing. Listen to my cry for help, my King and my God, for to you I pray.” Sighing? Crying for help? This doesn’t sound like a man, despite his lofty position, who felt he had things all under control, does it?

 

Consider David’s words in the next two psalms: 

“O Lord, do not rebuke me in your anger or discipline me in your wrath. Be merciful to me, Lord, for I am faint; O Lord, heal me, for my bones are in agony. My soul is in anguish. How long, O Lord, how long?” (Psalm 6:1-3).

“O Lord my God, I take refuge in you; save and deliver me from all who pursue me, or they will tear me like a lion and rip me to pieces with no one to rescue me” (Psalm 7:1-2).

 

Reading these and other passages like it make me think, ‘Wow. And I think I have it bad!’ 

 

Thankfully, in his writings King David doesn’t leave us there, cowering in fear and desperation and panic. He always points to his source for hope, comfort, assurance and safety – the Lord, Jehovah God. At the end of Psalm 5, for example, he concludes:

“But let all who take refuge in [the Lord] be glad; let them ever sing for joy. Spread your protection over them, that those who love your name may rejoice in you. For surely, O Lord, you bless the righteous, your surround them with your favor as with a shield” (Psalm 5:11-12).

 

He makes similar declarations in the subsequent psalms: “The Lord has heard my cry for mercy; the Lord accepts my prayer” (Psalm 6:9), and “My shield is God Most High, who saves the upright in heart…. I will give thanks to the Lord because of his righteousness and will sing praise to the name of the Lord Most High” (Psalm 7:10,17).

 

What these and countless other passages in the Bible tell me is whenever I encounter those “tore up from the floor up” moments of my life, I need to take my eyes off the circumstances I can’t control and look instead to the God who is in control of the circumstances. 

 

‘Why is this happening?’ I might wonder, without ever knowing the answer. ‘What am I to do?’ I might frantically ask, and the Lord’s answer might be, “Nothing. Absolutely nothing. I’ve got this. You just watch.”

As a verse from another psalm assures me, “The Lord is my strength and my song; he has become my salvation” (Psalm 118:14). If I can remember that, no matter what is happening around me, our city, the nation or even around the world, I’m reminded there’s no reason to fear. God is still on His throne, and isn’t going to relinquish His sovereign role and control anytime soon. 

Is There Value in the Bible?

Tony Evans tells the story of a young man who ran afoul of the law and was sentenced to a couple of years in prison. Despite his wrongdoing, his mother continued to love him and pray for him. One day while talking to his mother, the man asked her to send him something that would be useful during his days of incarceration.

Within about a week he received a package from his mother, and inside was a new Bible. He looked at it, shrugged, and thought, “What good is this? I need something practical.” A few days later the inmate had an opportunity to call his mother again. She asked if he had received the Bible. “Yes, I got it, Mama, but I need something practical.” “Read your Bible,” his mother replied.

As time passed the man would receive letters from her, and she continued to urge him to read the Bible. During one of her visits he said, “I know we used to go to church together and all that. I get it and yeah, I’m reading the Bible, but Mama, I need something practical.”

About a year later the young man finished his sentence and was released from prison. After returning home, he hugged his mother and then said, “Mama, I asked you to send me something practical. But all I ever got from you was that Bible.”

Looking her son straight in the eyes, she replied, “Son, at the front of each of the 66 chapters of that Bible, I placed a $100 bill. But you never saw that – because you never read your Bible.”

There’s a powerful moral to that story, even if you’ve never found a Bible containing even a single $100 bill – or any currency, for that matter. Every year the Bible, in all its various sizes and shapes and versions and translations, is proclaimed the best-selling book in America. But each year, sadly, it also ranks as perhaps the least-read bestseller.

In our home we have well over a dozen Bibles, some that I’ve bought and others that I received over the years from publishers while I was the editor of a Christian magazine. One thing I’ve learned about each one of them – they don’t read themselves. We have to physically retrieve one, hold it, open it, and then proceed to do the hard part: Read it.

Thanks to technology, it’s even simpler. We have the Bible available online. It can be downloaded to our tablets and smartphones. We can even get audio versions of the Bible – again, in the translation or paraphrase of our choice. And yet, biblical illiteracy remains alarmingly high.

Maybe if Bibles came with cash embedded people would be more inclined to read them, but it’s unlikely, as Pastor Evans’ story points out. And yet there’s no escaping the priceless treasure we can find if we commit to spending time consistently – even daily – in the Word of God. 

What value does it offer? The list could go on indefinitely, but here are just a few examples of its worth for everyone who professes to know and follow Jesus Christ:

1)     It can keep us out of trouble. As King David wrote, asking and then answering his own question, “How can a young man keep his way pure? By living according to your word. I will seek you with all my heart; do not let me stray from your commands. I have hidden your word in my heart that I might not sin against you” (Psalm 119:9-11).

2)     It teaches us right from wrong, shows us the way to live properly, and prepares us for all God wants us to do: “All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work” (2 Timothy 3:16-17).

3)     It enables us to know and understand God and His ways: “My son, if you accept my words and store up my commands within you, turning your ear to wisdom and applying your heart to understanding, and if you call out for insight and cry aloud for understanding, and if you look for it as for silver and search for it as for hidden treasure, then you will understand the fear of the Lord and find the knowledge of God. For the Lord gives wisdom and from his mouth come knowledge and understanding…. Then you will understand what is right and just and fair – every good path” (Proverbs 2:6-9).

That barely scratches the surface, but if we really want to make a difference in the world around us, if we’re concerned about the course society is taking and the values being espoused, perhaps what’s needed is less complaining and hand-wringing and more Bible reading, studying, meditating, memorizing and applying.

Maybe we need to return to being “people of the Book,” as the ancient Hebrews once determined to be, as well as millions of believers through the centuries. Instead of simply giving lip service to “the good book,” we could dig into it and try to find out what treasures we can uncover. Even with the new year still weeks away, it’s not too early to make that our resolution – or even a goal.