What Are You Training For?

Athletes exercise self-control in all things; they do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable one. So I do not run aimlessly, nor do I box as though beating the air; but I punish my body and enslave it, so that after proclaiming to others I myself should not be disqualified.
1 Corinthians 9:25-27

When I heard this passage today, it really took me back. Looking at me now it is probably hard to believe, but my Junior year of High School, I ran cross-country. As much as running up and down hills in the Southern California desert from August through November isn't the most pleasant thing in the world, I enjoyed it. It wasn't my best experience running, however. That would have been the previous summer, when I ran for pleasure in northern Minnesota. There was something special about running through the woods, along the lake shore, or down country roads.

The following spring, having just concluded the cross-country season, it was only natural that I would try out for the track team. I didn't last a month. I may not have lasted much more than a week or so. There was something about running around a track over and over again that drove me absolutely bonkers. I just couldn't take it - I felt like I wasn't getting anywhere. I am convinced that the term "running around in circles" was coined by a frustrated track athlete.

Anyway, this is where my mind went when I heard this passage this morning. For me, running around the track was aimless. There was no purpose in it. At least when I ran cross-country, I felt like I was going somewhere. When I was running in Minnesota, every step was its own mini journey - each step had its own purpose.

This is what I ultimately got out of this passage. We need purpose. Not necessarily just a purpose that we see at the end of the road. We need purpose every step of the way. It is difficult to see the end of the road, the ultimate purpose of our lives. By finding lots of little purposes along the way, we can make the entire journey have purpose, every step of the way.