Finishing the race well with hope

Horses at Silecroft, Cumbria

The other day, Miriam and I were walking in a nearby park when we ran into Miriam's secondary-school PE teacher. But Miriam knew her better as her orienteering coach.

Orienteering is a racing sport combining running with map-reading. Athletes navigate their way on a course (in the South Lakes, the courses are usually outside through woods and fields or on top of moors) seeking checkpoints, or 'controls', usually in a prescribed order. They record their arrival at each control: in Miriam's time, the control was a kind of hole-puncher, each with a distinct design that athletes would punch on a card they carried; nowadays it's electronic. Then they run to the next control, repeating this until they arrive at the finish line -- and whoever gets there first wins.

So this week, when Miriam ran into her former coach and another orienteer and they caught up on old times, I imagined the enjoyable struggle of orienteering. 

As one of Miriam's family friends has described it, orienteering requires the skill of 'cunning running' -- cunning because one must navigate on one's feet, and running because one must be quick about it!

Orienteering can be a helpful image of the kingdom of God. Like orienteers, we too are engaged in a race: a joyful struggle to enter the kingdom of God (as I have written about here), in which God is restoring the world, and we are summoned to compete and win, overcoming spiritual forces of evil. But unlike orienteers, our victory does not come from our skill or strength; our victory comes from God. 

As Psalm 147 says. '[God's] pleasure is not in the strength of the horse, nor his delight in the legs of a man; the LORD delights in those who fear him, who put their hope in his unfailing love' (vv. 10-11).

The strength of the horse and the legs of a man refer to power harnessed by humans, and one can hear in these images echoes of war. This too relates to orienteering, which originated in the late 1800s as a competitive sport among Scandinavian military officers. 

In the Old Testament, there is a direct connection between horses and war. We can see this in the book of Job, in which God describes the fierce strength of horses:

'Do you give the horse his strength
or clothe his neck with a flowing mane?
Do you make him leap like a locust,
striking terror with his proud snorting?
He paws fiercely, rejoicing in his strength,
and charges into the fray.
He laughs at fear, afraid of nothing;
he does not shy away from the sword.
The quiver rattles against his side,
along with the flashing spear and lance.
In frenzied excitement he eats up the ground;
he cannot stand still when the trumpet sounds.
At the blast of the trumpet he snorts, "Aha!"
He catches the scent of battle from afar,
the shout of commanders and the battle cry.' (Job 39:19-25)

Further, whereas some of the nations surrounding Israel tamed horses for war, God told the Israelites to not use horses so that they would not be tempted to return to Egypt, the land of slavery, where horses could be obtained (Deut. 17:16). 

Perhaps, too, God wanted to teach the Israelites to rely upon him, and not on horses, for their victory. As I read through the accounts of Israel's battles against foreign armies, conquering and inhabiting the Promised Land, it becomes clear that although their courage and skill were important, the true source of their victory was not the strength of their weapons or might, but God alone. 

As Moses tells the Israelites,

You may say to yourselves, 'These nations are stronger than we are. How can we drive them out?' But do not be afraid of them; remember well what the LORD your God did to Pharaoh and to all Egypt. You saw with your own eyes the great trials, the miraculous signs and wonders, the mighty hand and outstretched arm, with which the LORD your God brought you out. The LORD your God will do the same to all the peoples you now fear. Moreover, the LORD your God will send the hornet among them until even the survivors who hide from you have perished. (Deut. 7:17-20)

Fast-fowarding to today, if we are engaged in a race or a battle towards God's kingdom, then what does it mean to compete with fear of God and hope in his unfailing love?

To answer this question, I want to look at two biblical examples. The first is the widow described briefly in the Gospels as giving two small coins for the temple offering after the rich gave their gifts. Jesus sees her and says she has given more than the others because they gave out of their wealth, whereas she in her poverty gave all she had to live on (Lk. 21:1-4).

About a decade ago, I attended the wedding of two friends of mine. The minister marrying them preached a sermon based on this widow, using her as an image of my friends offering themselves completely to God through their sacrificial love for one another in marriage. 

At the time, the widow seemed to me an unexpected sermon topic for their wedding. My friends were and are both capable doctors, whereas the widow was in those patriarchal times among the most vulnerable of people, being without a husband and protector. At the time, if I had guessed which passage of scripture the minister would preach from, I might have said 1 Corinthians 13 (the famous 'love' chapter) or something similarly obvious. 

But now I see wisdom in choosing the widow as a model for their marriage, because marriage involves sacrificial love, and sometimes such love is invisible to people looking for 'the strength of the horse' and human power. Jesus, on the other hand, sees deeper than the surface; he delights in the widow's fear of God and hope in his unfailing love, expressed through her ultimate gift, and he invites us to also look at the world through his vision.

The widow did not have much in terms of possessions or wealth, but what she did have, she gave with all of her heart to God. Thus, in a spiritual sense, she was a stronger athlete than all the rest; she triumphed through completely trusting God and seeking his kingdom first.

The second example of what it looks like to fear God and hope in his unfailing love comes from the Apostle Paul's farewell speech to the elders of the Ephesian church, as told in the book of Acts (20:17-38). Paul reminds them of how he lived among them in the face of fierce opposition: for three years, night and day he steadfastly proclaimed the Gospel to them.

Like the widow, Paul offered his all -- particularly his strength, energy and effort:

You yourselves know that these hands of mine have supplied my own needs and the needs of my companions. In everything I did, I showed you that by this kind of hard work we must help the weak, remembering the words the Lord Jesus himself said: 'It is more blessed to give than to receive.' (vv. 34-35)

Paul used his intellect and zeal to serve God, the church and those in need. In Paul, we see that 'the strength of the horse' and human power, though not essential in God's kingdom, are not meaningless, either; rather, what matters is how one uses one's power in whatever form that power comes.

Knowing the challenges he faces, Paul tells the Ephesian elders that he considers his life worth nothing to him 'if only I may finish the race and complete the task the Lord Jesus has given me -- the task of testifying to the gospel of God's grace' (v. 24). 

Paul sees himself as a runner on the last leg of the race, and he gives it everything he's got. Although historians understand that at this point, Paul has many years of ministry ahead of him, we see that he lives each day as though it were the end of a race, similar to the widow's complete offering to God in the temple.

I'm not saying we should be reckless and burn ourselves out. Part of being an athlete is knowing one's limits and taking care of one's body. From my own memories of running long distances in secondary-school PE classes, I needed to pace myself if I wanted to finish well; simply trying to sprint the whole time resulted in fatigue and was unsustainable. 

Finishing well is the goal. Miriam has described to me that the end of the race is the most exciting part of an orienteering event, when the orienteer has recorded their last control and all that remains is making a mad dash to the finishing line, where all their family and friends are cheering them on.

But the finishing line can feel far off or even nonexistent in these days of COVID-19 and lockdown, when we may be exhausted and perhaps even lost. 

This is when we need hope the most to sustain us: hope that the finishing line -- the kingdom of God -- is awaiting us, where God and all the saints and angels are rooting for us, even if we can't always see or hear them, to finish the race well through being faithful to God.

Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us. Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. Consider him who endured such opposition from sinful men, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart. (Heb. 12:1-3)