Lesson 5

Lesson 5: “Life is a marathon, not a sprint. Take your time…”

Several times in his letters Paul refers to life as a race. For example in Philippians 3:14: “I press on to reach the end of the race and receive the heavenly prize for which God, through Christ Jesus, is calling us”.

But just because life is a race, doesn’t mean that we have to be in a hurry. I think we need to recognise that it’s a marathon not a sprint, otherwise we’re going to burn out before we reach the end of the race – and I don’t think that’s what God wants.

I’m not saying that there aren’t times when we have to push that little bit harder and invest more of ourselves in a task – but that can’t be our normal. It’s just not sustainable in the long run; and the long run is what we’re about.

In some ways this is more about our internal pace than what is going on externally. As we have hopefully learned during our Day of Prayer, it is only when we are internally rested that we can really be effective externally and be properly focused on what God wants us to be doing.

I don’t remember any instances in the Gospels where Jesus did anything in a hurry – in fact, quite the opposite – I can think of several instances where people got frustrated because He didn’t do things as quickly as they’d have liked.

Do we do that? Do we think we have to push things along because God isn’t quite responding to the needs fast enough? Maybe we need to move ahead a bit faster and let God catch up with what we’re doing? If we don’t speed up, it might not all get done!

Look for symptoms of this in your life today. I know my internal pace has sped up too much when I find myself striding around the office at top speed. I have learnt to catch myself when I notice that, and slow my pace down to a stroll. This has an internal effect as well, helping me catch my breath, gather my thoughts and remember that I can take my time. Life’s a marathon, not a sprint…