𝐴𝑅𝐸 𝑌𝑂𝑈 𝐴 𝐿𝐴𝑍𝑌 𝐴𝑇𝐻𝐿𝐸𝑇𝐸?

Imagine yourself as an athlete training with your coach on a field.

You’re a runner who has won multiple awards, yet your coach doesn’t relent in training you like you have won nothing.

You run to the end of the field and you sit down hard on the field in frustration.

You’re hungry and you’re tired.

You’re angry too, because like they say a hungry man is an angry man.

So, let’s say you’re slightly angry too.

Everyone knows you have a big game coming up, the kind that would make you earn a scholarship in one of the best countries worldwide.

You’re motivated, you stand up and you dash out.

You’re running another lap.

You get to another point, and this time you lie down flat on the field.

Exhausted and strained.

Anyone who looks at you closely would see that your eyes are shiny with tears.

You think again.

This time, of your mother, she shows you her wrinkled and ugly hands as a result of cleaning and washing toilets in a big hospital in your street.
With tired eyes, she tells you she stayed in that hospital for three years to save enough for your secondary school education.

She tells you she is tired and isn’t sure if she can continue to fend for your tertiary studies.

You study her eyes. They look tired, yet full of love for you.

You groan and you stand up with staggering legs, you feel energy surging through your whole body as you imagine how your mother’s face would light up with joy when you present a letter of a fully sponsored scholarship to her.

You start running again, with wild eyes and fiery bones.

As you turn to run back another mile, you feel someone grab you from behind.

You see the loving face of your coach telling you to replenish the lost energy.

He shakes his head as you try to protest, while he leads you towards the canteen.

You realize that you feel weak and you need to truly replenish.

As you walk into the canteen, the aroma of freshly cooked chicken and nicely baked doughnuts flow into your nostrils.

You smile. Time to eat.

Then you hear your coach ordering three bottles of an energy drink.

The same energy drink with a terrible smell.

As you sit quietly, he places the bottles in front of you and tells you how you need to conduct yourself well and restrict yourself from certain foods until you win.

You need to be light to run. And you need to run to win.

You hold back tears as you let the liquid of the bottle go down your throat.

Let’s switch, shall we?

Think about this young athlete who does this to win an award or scholarship that wouldn’t last forever.

Yet, he conducts himself temperately.

You are a Christian, and in this race that you run, you run to receive a crown of eternal blessedness that would not wither.

Why then, would you not sacrificially restrict yourself from everything that would make you feel heavy as you run the race?

I beseech you, that you run well. Don’t just run absentmindedly, run with a goal.

Run that you would win.

Spiritually training not only helps you for the present, but also for the future.

1Cor.9.25 Now every athlete who goes into training conducts himself temperately and restricts himself in all things. They do it to win a wreath that will soon wither, but we [do it to receive a crown of eternal blessedness] that cannot wither. (AMP)

Heb.12.1 – Therefore we also, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us,

Heb.12.2 – looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.

I hope you got something from this post.

Do share, if you did.