Mile 3
The sluggard says, “There is a lion in the road!
There is a lion in the streets!”
(Proverbs 26:13)
The sluggard says, “There is a lion in the road!
There is a lion in the streets!”
(Proverbs 26:13)
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Have you ever experienced victory? I haven’t. Not before now anyways.
I stand just over the finish line basking in an unfamiliar celebration. It’s not the cheers and hugs and high fives of friends I'm unaccustomed to. It’s the celebration exploding inside me. It roars on until the party outside me seems small and quiet. I'm swimming in feelings of completeness and accomplishment like it’s the first time I’ve ever achieved anything. I don’t know how soon this feeling will fade, but I want it to go on forever. |
A woman slips a small but shiny medal around my neck. There’s no podium waiting for me. My country’s national anthem doesn't sing in the background. There’s very little ceremony at all, actually. The medals are slipped around neck after neck as runners move through the exit chute like parts being shuffled along an assembly line. Yet, the faces of these runners, they are full of pride and celebration.
They look like their country’s national anthem is playing.
They look like victory.
How can this possibly be victory, though? These are runners who finished alongside me and I was just outrun by more than 7,000 other runners. Yet, even under the weight of such a massive defeat, their faces and my feelings remind me of those last second shot victory scenes you see compiled at the end of every March Madness. It really does look and feel like victory.
The intensity of it confuses me. It’s not like I’ve never won anything. I’ve played sports my whole life. And although there were never state championships – or even league championships the best I can recall – I’ve celebrated wins along the way.
Maybe I don’t understand victory.
I look it up in the dictionary. I see these words first: an act of defeating an enemy.
Defeating an enemy?
Well that explains why I’ve never felt victorious before. There were rivals along the way for sure, but I don’t ever recall defeating an enemy.
But that makes victory today even more confusing. What enemy have I defeated today to unleash such a profound sense of celebration?
I parade along the chute with my medal and I head toward the exit. I take one final look back at the finish line and that’s when I see him: I see the enemy. As I stand staring miles and years into the past, the enemy who’d been a ghostly and burdening influence on the first fifty years of my life now looks as familiar to me as any creature has ever looked.
That’s because the creature is me. The enemy I’ve just trampled is me.
I turn around and resume my walk away from the race. Victory has turned from celebration to feelings of a new lease on life. My lease is tied to Proverbs 26:13, which reads:
The sluggard says, “There is a lion in the road! There is a lion in the streets!”
Do you know how many times I’ve stood in the doorway of life’s challenges screaming there’s a lion in the road? I think we all do it from time to time. But I’ve done it all my life. As clearly as I heard the starter call us to the starting line of my first half-marathon, I’ve heard God call me over and over to do his work. Yet, every time I’ve entertained the idea of saying yes, I end up screaming back at Him, “Are you kidding me, there’s a lion in the road. Are you really asking me to tackle this while there’s a lion in the road?”
Proverbs 26:13 speaks to the sluggard, or laziness. Well, one of the strategies I’ve used most of my life to remain lazy when God calls is fear. If there’s nothing about his call to genuinely fear, I create something. Even a lion in the streets if I must. God hates my laziness, I know that. But what kind of God wouldn't understand a fear of lions, right?
When the idea of running this half-marathon came to me, my instinct was to dwell on how much I hated distance running. Then I told myself I was ill-equipped to do it. Distance runners are tall and lanky, I thought. And I promise you, there is nothing tall or lanky about me. Isn’t that how it always happens, though? When an idea comes to us that excites us, that ignites into a dream, isn’t the first voice we hear the one telling us all the reasons the dream could never come true? I need you to know that voice is mine and it is yours. It’s yelling there’s a lion in the street. We have to understand this isn’t a voice of fear or doubt; this is the voice of a sluggard. Someone more willing to create images to fear than taking the challenging first steps toward possibility and victory.
I’m climbing a steep hill to head to my truck. (Always park close to the finish line; that’s one lesson I’ll take away from this first race). There can’t possibly be a million steps here, but the pain shooting up from my feet into my calves and thighs says I might be underestimating. Any discomfort I felt during the race suddenly pales in comparison to the distress I’m feeling after it. It's a different pain, though. With each step, I’m discovering the distinct difference between creating a lion to roam the streets and being that lion.
Joe Girard once said, “The elevator to success is out of order. You’ll have to use the stairs…one step at a time.” Climbing these steps, leaving the scene of my first victory and tasting life for the first time as a victor, I reflect on the number of opportunities I’ve missed in my life because I decided the elevator was out of order and taking the steps was too hard. Walking up this hill, though, I realize I've learned something today: my next step is only as intimidating as the power I give it to intimidate.
And I know something going forward. The steps that are easiest for me to create a fear of - those are the steps I need to take. Those steps lead to victory.
They look like their country’s national anthem is playing.
They look like victory.
How can this possibly be victory, though? These are runners who finished alongside me and I was just outrun by more than 7,000 other runners. Yet, even under the weight of such a massive defeat, their faces and my feelings remind me of those last second shot victory scenes you see compiled at the end of every March Madness. It really does look and feel like victory.
The intensity of it confuses me. It’s not like I’ve never won anything. I’ve played sports my whole life. And although there were never state championships – or even league championships the best I can recall – I’ve celebrated wins along the way.
Maybe I don’t understand victory.
I look it up in the dictionary. I see these words first: an act of defeating an enemy.
Defeating an enemy?
Well that explains why I’ve never felt victorious before. There were rivals along the way for sure, but I don’t ever recall defeating an enemy.
But that makes victory today even more confusing. What enemy have I defeated today to unleash such a profound sense of celebration?
I parade along the chute with my medal and I head toward the exit. I take one final look back at the finish line and that’s when I see him: I see the enemy. As I stand staring miles and years into the past, the enemy who’d been a ghostly and burdening influence on the first fifty years of my life now looks as familiar to me as any creature has ever looked.
That’s because the creature is me. The enemy I’ve just trampled is me.
I turn around and resume my walk away from the race. Victory has turned from celebration to feelings of a new lease on life. My lease is tied to Proverbs 26:13, which reads:
The sluggard says, “There is a lion in the road! There is a lion in the streets!”
Do you know how many times I’ve stood in the doorway of life’s challenges screaming there’s a lion in the road? I think we all do it from time to time. But I’ve done it all my life. As clearly as I heard the starter call us to the starting line of my first half-marathon, I’ve heard God call me over and over to do his work. Yet, every time I’ve entertained the idea of saying yes, I end up screaming back at Him, “Are you kidding me, there’s a lion in the road. Are you really asking me to tackle this while there’s a lion in the road?”
Proverbs 26:13 speaks to the sluggard, or laziness. Well, one of the strategies I’ve used most of my life to remain lazy when God calls is fear. If there’s nothing about his call to genuinely fear, I create something. Even a lion in the streets if I must. God hates my laziness, I know that. But what kind of God wouldn't understand a fear of lions, right?
When the idea of running this half-marathon came to me, my instinct was to dwell on how much I hated distance running. Then I told myself I was ill-equipped to do it. Distance runners are tall and lanky, I thought. And I promise you, there is nothing tall or lanky about me. Isn’t that how it always happens, though? When an idea comes to us that excites us, that ignites into a dream, isn’t the first voice we hear the one telling us all the reasons the dream could never come true? I need you to know that voice is mine and it is yours. It’s yelling there’s a lion in the street. We have to understand this isn’t a voice of fear or doubt; this is the voice of a sluggard. Someone more willing to create images to fear than taking the challenging first steps toward possibility and victory.
I’m climbing a steep hill to head to my truck. (Always park close to the finish line; that’s one lesson I’ll take away from this first race). There can’t possibly be a million steps here, but the pain shooting up from my feet into my calves and thighs says I might be underestimating. Any discomfort I felt during the race suddenly pales in comparison to the distress I’m feeling after it. It's a different pain, though. With each step, I’m discovering the distinct difference between creating a lion to roam the streets and being that lion.
Joe Girard once said, “The elevator to success is out of order. You’ll have to use the stairs…one step at a time.” Climbing these steps, leaving the scene of my first victory and tasting life for the first time as a victor, I reflect on the number of opportunities I’ve missed in my life because I decided the elevator was out of order and taking the steps was too hard. Walking up this hill, though, I realize I've learned something today: my next step is only as intimidating as the power I give it to intimidate.
And I know something going forward. The steps that are easiest for me to create a fear of - those are the steps I need to take. Those steps lead to victory.
