In many ways, my running community has helped me understand this side of God's nature. I've never met a group of people so committed to celebrating the attempt, regardless of what the outcome of that attempt might end up being.
My running journey is full of events I attempted but didn't finish, or did finish but in an ugly manner. Yet, I have a circle of friends who are always more anxious about asking what's next than they are about talking about the attempts that didn't go so well. Because of them, I too spend a lot of time thinking about what's next - and tackling what's next. I believe that's the influence God wants to have in our life. He wants us looking around this world, seeing the next opportunity to make a loving impact, and he doesn't want us weighed down for a minute by things in our life that have gone wrong. Can't you just see God sitting across from us, like a running buddy, eyes wide open and his heart racing, asking, "what's next?" There's a beautify story in the bible. Jesus had just risen from the dead. He has a private conversation with Peter, who had denied knowing Jesus 3 times before Jesus was crucified, even though Peter swore up and down that would NEVER happen. In this conversation, Jesus asked Peter three times if he loved him. And three times Peter told Jesus he did - I love you - more than anything Peter told him. You know, I think this was Jesus' way of telling Peter, I'm not bookmarking the three times you denied me. I'm celebrating what you are going to attempt from this moment on. Jesus told Peter he'd be the rock upon which he'd build his church - I think Jesus was way more focused on what Peter would try than who Peter denied. Bob Goff says some beautiful words about what this looks like in our life. He said, "redemption is a process set in motion by love and completed by grace." Redemption, love and grace..... Some days, if we're looking in the wrong places, it can feel like there isn't much of that process left in the world. It can feel like the whole world is standing around with a whole fist full of bookmarks ready to glue one to each page full of the failures we collect. And I think while we're watching this and sensing them getting slapped against our pages and we're doing everything we can to protect ourselves from them, we're missing out on a loving God who doesn't have the first stinking bookmark in his hands. We're missing out on a God too excited to ask, "what's next" to even consider bookmarking an attempt in life that failed. God's locker room speech to us is much like the one he gave Peter. Do you love me, he's asking us in response to each of our shortcomings? And with each yes we give him he's responding, awesome, now go be a rock on which I can build my church. Go attempt something!!
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Robert "Keith" CartwrightI am a friend of God, a dad, a runner who never wins, but is always searching for beauty in the race. Archives
May 2024
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