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She is running the race, and she's picked up speed….

One of the best things about being a pastor is that when God is moving in people's lives they often share it with me. I love hearing the stories of God's movement in our lives and I think everyone should hear these stories and be encouraged as I am. On Sunday between services, I heard something that made my day and I was able to share it with our second service. I didn't want the first service to miss out so here it is. 

We are so blessed to have young people in our church who really, truly love Jesus - one of our younger youth students in particular has really impressed me with her boldness. Not long ago she had a birthday and I brought a Dairy Queen blizzard to her school as a little birthday gift. She was so excited about her gift and her classmates, of course, got jealous and started asking where the blizzard came from. I was proud of this moment when it would have been easy for a shy girl to avoid the honest answer. She was excited and started sharing that it was from her pastor and that she goes to a youth group and she was telling everyone that they should all be coming to youth. There has been ongoing bullying in this person's life which is heartbreaking, and not helped by her faith in Jesus and eagerness to invite people. As she navigates responding to bullies it would be so easy for her to respond by pulling back, no more youth, no more talking about Jesus but she is choosing to respond boldly by going even deeper in her relationship with Jesus and she wants to get baptized to go even more public with her faith. Wow.. I am in awe and challenged when I hear stories like this, we can learn a lot from the young people in our church. 

 In 1 Corinthians: 9, Paul is bringing this idea of the race. Paul talks about how athletes are very disciplined in their actions so that they can finish the race and receive a prize but Paul mentions that this prize fades away. We as followers of Jesus are called to be disciplined, to keep running the race because if we cross the finish line we will receive a prize that is eternal. We are all running this race and I pray that we all finish this race. There are many moments in life where the temptation to get off the track, to quit the race, becomes real. For many people simply being asked to share about your faith would make you want to get out of the race. For many of us, a bully or persecution in our lives would make us think about quitting the race. Let us be inspired by people who keep running the race when things get hard, not only keep running but pick up speed and push even harder. At the end of our race is an eternal prize, keep running it, keep your eyes down the track, and keep your eyes on Jesus. 

 Pastor Clay