The Waiting Game

I knew I would win because I always won; no one had beaten me. Pure confidence flowed through my veins as I fixed my eyes on the finish line and ran as fast as my feet would take me. I was queen of the 100-metre race and everyone in my elementary school knew it.

Growing up, I gravitated towards sports and positions that were based on speed: forward in soccer, winger in hockey, and anchor in track relay. I was good at sprinting because I could run hard for a short amount of time, but I shied away from activities that took too much time. 

When my sister-in-law Anita encouraged (forced) me to enter a 10km race with her a few years ago, there was not a single part of me that believed I could finish. I was a sprinter, not a long-distance runner. But I agreed to run on the condition that I would quit once it got too hard.

Similarly to running, I have been really good at sprinting in my spiritual life. I will trust God for a time, but if things aren’t going the way I thought, if God’s way seems too hard, or if He's just taking too long, I am often tempted to turn to something else to alleviate my discomfort. 

With endless quick-fixes at our fingertips, it can be so hard to wait on the Lord and trust His way and His timing.

Feeling empty and exhausted after a long day? Chocolate can help.

Mounting stress from too many demands? Escape and avoid through hours of Netflix.

Feeling disconnected from those closest to you? Put up a wall and seek fulfillment elsewhere.

These quick-fixes offer us comfort when we are feeling something unpleasant, but they do not take away our problems or cure our emptiness. 

Why not?

Perhaps that is because the comfort we are searching for cannot be found in something but only in someone.

And what if, by turning to everything else, we are turning away from the One who can bring us the comfort we are looking for?

Is our need to relieve compromising our ability to receive?

Life brings many seasons of struggle, discomfort and pain, and it can be hard to keep going. Jesus does not promise to give us easy, perfect lives, but He promises to be with us constantly, in the form of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is our advocate – one who helps us, champions us, supports us, and upholds us.

When do you find it hardest to keep trusting and keep seeking God's way? 

The more uncomfortable I feel, the more I look for a way out. But God has never given me permission to quit, because He is everything I need to keep going. 

When we want to quit, we need more of Jesus. When we are uncomfortable, we need more of Jesus. When we can't see a way, we need more of Jesus. He will give us exactly what we need to keep running our race, because everything we need is found in Him. 

Jeremiah 29:12-13

“Then you will call on me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.”

When we seek Him, we will find Him. It is only in His presence where we are given our daily bread – what we need for each and every day.

Over an hour into my 10km race, I found myself crossing the finish line. I had wanted to stop running many times throughout the race, but Anita wouldn’t let me. When I stopped, she grabbed my hand and told me to keep going. When I was exhausted, she told me we could do it.

Just like Anita encouraged me to keep running, the Holy Spirit is our encourager when we want to quit. Our community of fellow-runners are the ones who grab our hands and tell us to keep going.

Having endurance is hard, but let us be people who wait on the Lord. If we are in Christ, we are in this race with Jesus for the long-haul. So let this be your encouragement (and mine) today to keep running your race.

Keep trusting. Keep fixing your eyes. Keep abiding.

When you are tempted to turn to the quick-fix, remember that there is no fix like Jesus.

How Much Baggage is Too Much Baggage?

Hebrews 12:1-2
"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, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of our faith."

If you have a toddler, or have met one, you know that any simple task becomes instantly challenging with a little one in tow. So you might think my husband and I were brave (or crazy) for taking a trip last year to Louisiana with our two toddlers to visit family.

If only you could have seen us at the airport! Our baggage cart was piled higher than my husband could see over, so it took both of us to push and guide it. And our three year-old pushed our one year-old in the stroller.

I am one who likes (needs) to be prepared for any what if scenario that could potentially happen on the trip.

What if the kids dirty all of their clothes on the first day, the weather suddenly change while we're there, and the stroller and carrier aren't enough to transport the kids? Better pack twice as much stuff as we need, just to be safe.

It looked like we were moving to Louisiana, yet we were only visiting for a week. Perhaps we had too much baggage - certainly more than we needed!


The root of my fear when packing is often that if there were a need without a solution, it would reflect back on my inadequacy as a mom to care for my children.

Similarly to the excessive baggage I tote while travelling, I far too often shoulder needless baggage in my race of life.

Lately I have been shouldering the baggage of guilt. I'm not talking about the true guilt that comes from God which leads to repentance; I'm talking about the burdening false guilt, based on lies, that won't go away despite our best methods of alleviating it.

It's the kind of false guilt that continuously whispers, You're letting everyone down; You should be doing more; You constantly drop the ball; You're doing it wrong; Someone could do it better. 

Are any of those lies familiar to you?
They have been my constant companions for so long that I was blind to their presence.

And yet their presence in my life means that the race I am running and the weight I am carrying is harder and heavier than God intended.

"Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus." (Romans 8:1)

If our baggage is condemning, it needs to go.

How can we run our race, the race God has for each of us, when we are being crushed by our own baggage? Maybe the weight we're carrying is fear of the unknown, or worry about the details, or insecurity about our competency, or distrust that God will take care of us and our loved ones.

Often when I have said YES to God, but my baggage is too heavy, I become overwhelmed, implode, and question if I really heard God correctly. My belief and trust in God wavers as I think, I must be doing it wrong or I must have misunderstood what God was saying to me. 

But what if I didn't hear God wrong, He simply didn't intend for me to carry so much weight?

What's the alternative?

"Throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles".

When we hold firm to the truth of what God has asked us to do, and throw off everything that is not from Him, we can run our race the way He intended it to be run.

There is a cost to following Jesus. 

The reality is that if we say YES to what God is asking us to do, we will have to say NO to something else.

I can't be in one place and another at the same time. I can't love someone fully and hold onto bitterness in my heart. I can't trust God and maintain my own control simultaneously.

In order to say YES to God, we need to throw off something that can't come along with us.

Perhaps God has asked you to do something, or not do something, and the excessive baggage you carry is making your task nearly impossible and completely miserable.

What has God asked you to do?

What baggage do you need to throw off so you can follow through and run your race the way He intended?

When Jesus sent out His disciples in Matthew 10, He told them not to take any supplies with them on their journey, nor to worry about what they would say. God would work out the details.

The disciples didn't need to worry about the what ifs, they simply needed to trust and follow. It is the same for us.

Even though it is difficult, let us throw off our what ifs, so we can freely run our races.

There is a cost to following Jesus, but the cost of not following Him is far greater.