My feet felt heavy. They fell hard on the pavement. My pace slowed as my straining grew greater.
My playlist didn’t help matters. Slow meaningful music didn’t exactly help me pick-up-the-pace.
I hadn’t been running as frequently and my legs were telling me to slow down and take it easy. Discouragement set-in as negative thoughts ran rampant through my mind,
Why can’t I stay on track?
I was finally improving my distance and time but now I was backtracking!
The Holy Spirit nudged me and helped me press pause on my negative thoughts,
Could exercising simply be enough for today?
Did my time really matter?
My heart rate slowed as I took a deep breath and let go.
My enjoyment of running returned and my stress-meter dialed down.
How did I lose sight of my goal so quickly?
My goal shifted from running just being a healthy outlet for stress – to being all about my time and distance. In that moment, I was keenly aware of my tendency towards measuring success based on performance, results and mom-stats.
{Is mom-stats a-thing? I’m totally claiming this one…}
Seriously, so many of us can relate to this tug of war, a daily wrestling within. In almost every role we possess, we’re constantly measuring our success based on other people’s standards or impossible expectations we place on ourselves.
Without realizing it, we allow the world around us to dictate what we should do and who we should become. We are well versed in knowing how to push ourselves to the point of exhaustion. We try to do it all. And yet, somehow we still feel like failures.
Brothers and sisters, 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
Knowing Our Prize
Yes, there is value in straining towards a goal. Pushing ourselves. Pressing on.
But we need to press pause and realize what prize we are seeking. We are all straining towards something.
And that something makes all the difference.
When we think on this inwardly, honesty shows up and reveals the truth.
I may not be chasing after the things of this world per-se, but I’m most definitely straining towards meeting all the expectations of the world around me.
My world’s praise becomes my prize – as it pertains to my home, my family, my church, my community, my children’s schools and my pursuits.
Impossible expectations place an invisible weight on my shoulders that is constantly threatening to crush my very soul on a daily basis.
But if my prize is truly in being marked by the high calling of God in Christ Jesus, then I can let go of the lesser things by filtering everything through Him.
The How and Why start to matter more than the What. How I treat people. How I respond. Why I do something.
When I ask the questions Why? and How? I can better determine my What? What goals to work towards. Rather than letting the world dictate them to me.
Being Marked
We want to invest and reap rewards. We want to make sense of things. We want to control outcomes. And so too in our faith we want to reduce Jesus to a product that works for us.
Preference, performance, and outward appearance marking us instead of Jesus Christ Himself.
Maybe like me, perfectionism looms over you in addition to Jesus’ own words, “Be perfect as your heavenly father is perfect.”
You strive and you strain towards perfection, only to fall short. Especially when it comes to the ones you love the most. Working hard to outwardly please and appear to have it all together while inwardly crumbling under the weight of it all.
But the word, perfect, in Matthew 5:48 holds a much deeper meaning than perfectionism can offer us. In the Greek text, perfect means complete – in various ways of growth, in mental and moral character.
Yes, Jesus was perfect and without sin. But what we miss is that Jesus was perfect in the best of ways. Complete…
in maturity.
in character.
in integrity.
These are inner-man attributes that can’t be measured by outward appearance or performance.
Character is developed in the inward struggle, in the wrestling, in the surrendering, in how we respond to messes, challenges, and the imperfect outcomes of everyday life.
God is in process of changing, you and I, from the inside out. Not the other way around.
We are most marked by Jesus in the unseen places of our souls.
Letting Go of Lesser Things
Being marked by Christ means letting go of lesser things. Choosing the eternal. The unseen things that can restore souls rather than crush them.
Maybe how I speak to my kids, as we are walking out the door, matters more than if I show up on time.
Maybe how I respond to my husband matters more than being right in that moment.
Maybe letting my child do his school project on his own matters more than how it looks.
Maybe choosing not to explain myself is the more loving choice over defending myself.
Maybe there is greater strength in humility than in my pride.
When we get honest with ourselves and recognize we are daily chasing after far less worthy prizes we can shift gears internally and set our sights beyond the outward and look heavenward.
Let this mind be in you
which was also in Christ Jesus,
who, being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God,
but made Himself of no reputation,
taking the form of a bondservant, and coming in the likeness of men.
And being found in appearance as a man,
He humbled Himself
and became obedient
to the point of death,
even the death of the cross.
Philippians 2:5-8