1 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. Hebrews12:1
A couple of years ago I rode in a bike race in Grahamstown - it was very cold and looked drizzly and so I decided to wear a raincoat. About 10km into the race the weather changed for the better (Grahamstown can have four seasons in one day) and the raincoat was flapping, causing a lot of drag and cooking me. Fortunately I recognised one of the marshals along the road and so I tossed the raincoat to him and rode the rest of the race unencumbered.
Even good things can be hindrances in the race.
There are many folk in God's race who are hampered and hindered by too much stuff, too full a programme, too many competing priorities and too many voices they listen too. We need to keep things as simple as possible recognising that we are attracted to complexity but that it is seldom efficient. It is better for us to do a few things well than many things badly. It's better to have a small team of trusted coaches (the Holy Spirit and one or two reliable mentors) than to be listening to every voice and every opinion. Sometimes less is more.
On the other hand, a runner can fall out of a marathon because he did not eat all the carbs and proteins his body needed to sustain the effort. Similarly many of us are trying to run the race of life without sufficient soul sustenance. This lack of the basics will hinder our race.
What's hindering your race for God's glory in your life? Remember that a hindrance can be too much or too little of something, and that a hindrance isn't necessarily intrinsically bad - even good things can hinder us as we run for God's glory in our lives.
We will need to take a careful and fearless inventory...
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Theo Groeneveld theo@emmanuel.org.za
You can see past EmmDevs at http://emmdev.blogspot.com/
