[Notes made from talk by Linsey Wildsmith]
Why is it so easy to stop running the race? I
In today’s blog, I would love to explore this question through the Christian lens. Whether you have been a Christian for five minutes or 50 years, or you are still on the fence, I hope that through this blog you will be strengthened and keep pressing on in this journey. We often describe every step of our life as a journey because that is what life as a Christian is. In Hebrews (chapter 12), it describes our Christian life as a race and encourages us to run this race with ‘endurance’. As Christians, we need to run our race. We are meant to be change makers, system challengers. Every single day of our life on earth has purpose and growth pre-planned into it by God. In Jeremiah 29:11, Jeremiah reassures the exiles that God has not forsaken them (He never forsakes us).
In general, God has promised that our sins are forgiven, and we stand before God justified. God has plans for those in Christ, and those plans are good.1
It’s anything but boring. There are always more ways God wants to show us: his love for us, challenge us, train us, embrace us, cheer us on, hold our hand.
In Mathew 4:19, Jesus said to his first disciples, “follow me and I will make you fishers of men”. One commentator says, “Christ was always moving forward, and his invitation was always to follow him on his path.”2 It’s impossible to set up a comfort zone when we are living a life pursuit of Jesus – when our eyes are fixed on him. But the reality is, if it were this easy, we’d all be doing it. When I look at my own life, I am not breaking much a spiritual sweat, and I find it so easy to stop running and journeying with Jesus.
Why is it so easy to stop running the race?
I want to explore the answer to this question by doing a character study of someone in the Bible. A character study is simply looking at different bible characters and their stories.3
The character I would like to explore in today’s blog is Thomas. I just find the journey of Thomas in the gospel of John and the way he “ran the race” the most inspiring, encouraging, honest portrayal of any of the twelve apostles, and I see so much of myself in him. He is mentioned in all four but his words are only recorded in the book of John. Thomas is known to have a bad reputation. His name is often associated with doubt – doubting Thomas. But in fact, Thomas actually had great faith. He was incredibly brave. This was demonstrated in John 11:16, Thomas chose to be bold and say that he will go with Jesus and “die with him.” He was bold enough to convince the other disciples to go along too!4
He wasn’t a maniac. He didn’t have a death wish or anything. This is a man who truly believed and trusted in Jesus. He loved him. He obviously planned to spend whatever remained of his life, following Jesus – moving forwards, a true faith runner.
It didn’t last though, and Thomas stopped running.
I think a lot of us could relate to that at some point in our life. We’ve followed God and been obedient and things haven’t ended up the way we expected or the way we prayed they would. Or the thing he’s asking us to sacrifice to follow him is just too costly. So, what do we do? We stop running. We stop following. We back off. And that is exactly what Thomas did on that Good Friday. Thomas had backed off. He was the only apostle that wasn’t there when Jesus appeared for the first time. But why? Why had Thomas stayed away from the others? When your faith is low, when you feel far-off from God, when you feel let down and hard done by and broken, honestly, sometimes the last place you want to be, is surrounded by people whose faith is high. It’s not right. I am sure he was invited, but I personally understand why he turned it down. It can be hard to be with others who are happy and faith-filled when you’re feeling the opposite.
However, there is a fundamental flaw in Thomas’s approach: Thomas’s decision to stay away from the others, meant that he missed out on an opportunity to restore the very faith that he was mourning the loss of – to see the saviour that he so missed. By staying away, he disadvantaged himself and inhibited his ability to move forward.
There are 3 things we could learn from Thomas’s story:
- We cannot run the race alone.
God has designed humans to be in community with each other. Community is something we all want, no matter how we are wired – introvert, extrovert, socially adept or socially awkward. We were created to be in community with God and each other. If we want to be faith runners, we have to connect into the family of God. It’s incredibly important to stay connected. That is what the church is. Church is a community with others who love Jesus, who are also journeying with Jesus, who are encouraged by each other’s stories. I am not talking about attending a church service at a weekend. I am talking about walking in community, vulnerability and honesty with others who love Jesus and therefore love you. Over the last 100 years, community is one thing that has been consistently killed off in our culture. Community has been replaced by a highly privatised and individualised approach to being human. The technological advancements of the last 20 years and the ascent of social media platforms and dating apps and even home-working solutions, have changed, and are dramatically changing the way we interact with others. The result is a void of true human connectivity.
The pandemic, as tragic as it is, actually reminded us of the importance of togetherness. Through lockdown, we felt lonely, almost deserted, stuck with a laptop and our own thoughts.
We cannot run this race alone. - Your doubts5 and questions can fuel your race. Doubt can be the catalyst to real faith!
Doubt does not have to be the end; it can be a springboard to growth and new depth if we will handle it properly. Doubt can become fuel for the life of a sojourner.
For me personally, I wasn’t raised a Christian. I had been an atheist up until I encountered Jesus at the age of 16. The first year of my Christian faith was like a whirlwind. I fell head over heels in love with the Lord and couldn’t get enough of the Bible and Christian books, worship music, conferences, meetings. I went to everything I could. But lots of the questions I’d had previously were still there and, about a year after I became a Christian, they began to rear their ugly heads. And that’s when I grew to love the character of Thomas. God isn’t afraid of our questions and doubts. Jesus’s treatment of Thomas here proves that (John 20). Jesus is kind and gentle and gives Thomas what He needs in order to alleviate his doubts.
We need to be more open with each other as Christians. If we were only more open with each other with our struggles, we’d more easily be able to love, comfort and support each other through them instead of wasting so much time floundering in our secret doubts and sins and not moving forward. There’d be more faith runners in the Church today if we allowed each other the space and grace to question things and make mistakes. - Running with Jesus is a never-ending adventure
The disciple known as doubting Thomas, the disciple who refused to believe until he saw with his own eyes, became the disciple who, history says, journeyed the furthest geographically. You can trace Thomas’s ministry all the way to India. None of the other Twelve travelled that far for the Lord. Doubt didn’t hold him back. He stayed connected with the family of God and an entire sub-continent was introduced to the good news of Jesus because Thomas was a runner.
Let us pray :
Lord, I thank you that you empowered and called each of us, by your Holy Spirit, to be faith runners in this life – to pursue you, to follow after you and to settle for nothing less than experiencing all of who You are. Please help us in our doubts and questions. Please forgive us in our mistakes and please help us stay connected, honest, and vulnerable with those in the community of God around us so that we can run this race and win the prize of knowing you more.
In Jesus name,
Amen.
References
- https://www.gotquestions.org/Jeremiah-29-11.html
- https://connectusfund.org/matthew-4-19-meaning-of-follow-me
- https://meganallenministries.com/character-bible-study/
- https://wycf.wordpress.com/2019/03/25/the-boldness-of-thomas-john-11/comment-page-1/
- if you want to read more: https://www.josh.org/christian-doubt-okay-faith/