The Race

"Runners take your mark";
you're lined up, toes behind the line.
"Get set";
you're ready to give it all you've got.
"Go!"
You're off to win the race of your life.
New boundaries, signs and scenes,
as you press on toward your goal,
until slowly you start to fall behind.
You've always been told to come
out on top, you're getting discouraged.
You stop to read the signs.
You've been distracted-
then someone whispers:
"Don't look to your left or to your right,
or even to what you've left behind,
just press on!"
Hesitantly, you go on
and eventually you wind back down.
"Am I alone?" you ask yourself.
You answer, "yes-I'm so dumb,
I've already been left behind,
I'm a failure." --Satan's got ya again!
You finally drop to your knees,
and in a soft whisper you hear-
"Get up, you are not done,
go and finish this race I've already won for you!"
You obediently go.
Is this you?
No one ever said running a race was easy,
and neither is being a Christian!

**Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended:
but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are
behind and reaching forth unto those things which are
before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high
calling of God in Christ Jesus.
Philippians 3:13-14