Following Judah's Lion

Plucked from the Mindless Race

I Cor. 9:24 - Know ye not that they which run in a race run all, but one receiveth the prize? So run, that ye may obtain.

In the midst of it all, in the midst of life, there must come times of refreshing and contemplation about what and who is happening. How can we be quite satisfied with simply providing a house of flesh doing nothing more than existing as a creative life form? Working, going, thinking, planning, laughing, crying, and a thousand other processes should not be our only portion in this world, we have been called upward into an invisible relationship that transcends all that can be known by this world. Our purpose, inherent by our Creator’s design, speaks to us ever so softly through our sin laden consciousness and stirs in all of us a sense of estrangement from Him who has made us and exists around us.

Our raison d’etre, our reason for being, stalks us with an empty frustration that can only be temporarily muffled by the things of this world but can never find satisfaction until the Creator satisfies it by Himself with Himself. The dolphins, the bears, the fish, the lions, and all of creation has its place and struts and frets its time upon this earth with a resignation to its own specific purpose, but not so is man. We run to and fro drinking from every and any well that offers some outward solace, but they can never quench this relentless mystery that plagues our innermost thoughts and doubts. The entire world suffers and groans with a desire to be set free from this prison that most are unaware of while others deny, but all share alike.

Like runners in a deluge we move with great and cumbersome effort toward a non-existent destination of our own imaginations, some with confidence, but most ambivalent about the post life direction. But still we are haunted by thoughts and questions that have no answers and our hearts can only be assuaged by the knowledge that our fellow runners labor with us in darkness. We run in darkness, we play in darkness, we grow in darkness, and we die in darkness. Darkness becomes our anchor and in it we feel we find refuge and surety. We are its children as well as its victims.

And as we run well within the darkness with only the sound of our sinful footsteps to be heard, our spirits hear a voice that is like nothing we’ve ever heard. This voice calls to us with words and truth that slows our gallop as we listen to see if we desire more. And if our hearts are inclined, we continue to slow and listen inside the empty sinfulness of our spirits. We listen, we listen, and we hear. Like a bit in a horse's mouth we begin to turn toward that voice strengthened by a power that is not of ourselves, and for the first time we feel the possibility of hope. Faintly at first and not as yet distinct. Our flesh still hinders our vision but the drawing truth begins to crystallize until one day, one glorious day, we get our very first glimpse of salvation.

Not only an escape and surely not of this earth, but this salvation takes on a human form, a form most of us have seen with our earthly eyes before but somehow it appears much different. The religion we had relegated to a minor consideration suddenly bursts forth with an amazing light, the center of which is this form. As we run to it we find it chasing us as well, and the closer we come the clearer we see this form, tragic and yet glorious, humble and yet supreme. And then it happens, through the deluge of this world and through the fog of your own sin we see Him, the sin bearer, Jesus, the author of eternal life. We have never seen Him like this before, He now seems like the universal Lord of everything, the answer and destination we have unknowingly been searching for. He is the Savior, yes, the Savior.

In the moment that we embrace Him for who He is we are changed. The earthly migration that continues to run through the deluge of the things of this world suddenly seems different, we have been detached from it all and yet still standing in its midst. What is this feeling of release and newness, and why do we now experience a permeating reality of eternity? The crowd still runs with worthless intensity but you have become a spectator, freed from the bondage of that race that heads nowhere. Oh glorious freedom from sin, a freedom that now empowers us to enter a different race, camouflaged alongside your former race, but noticeably and wonderfully different. Gone is the fog and nebulousness of the destination, gone is the mindless journey that draws comfort from the rest of the runners, now comes a strength that is drawn from the Author and the Finisher of the narrow and yet expansive race we now run. Do not look back, your glory is Him and He is with you and ahead of you.

Have you been plucked from the futility of that empty race? Has your forgiven soul been rescued from the bondage that kept you headed for destruction while promising you freedom? And once being freed, have you fully bowed and embraced the life Giver who has not just freed you from that awful deluge, but has beckoned you into a light that cannot be seen with human eyes and cannot be known by human minds? Is He now your very life and do you run to Him always with the footsteps of worship and service alike? Let your compassion and your witness go out to those former friends still captured by the evil one’s course, but let your heart, your whole heart, every be His.

Heb.12:1-2 - Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us, Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith;