0523 GOING BEYOND

GOING BEYOND

 

It is a universal experience, though not always talked about. It is the question of How much is enough? When is it too much?

 

It struck me a few years ago that I cannot really know where my limits are until I have gone beyond them. When indicators tell me I’m in over my head, that’s when I know that it was too much.

 

Seems kind of tragic, doesn’t it? Maybe I regret having reached my limit, because it causes me to realize how out-of-balance my life has been. I focus on words such as “balance” and “margins.”

 

All’s well. Right?

 

Let’s think on this metaphor just a bit more: Is this natural limitation something you should submit to? Or can—indeed, SHOULD—you push through and increase your strength and surprise yourself that you actually can do more than you once had been able to do. You strain your muscles, and in a few days, your muscles are actually getting stronger. You stretch your margins, and find that next time it is a little less difficult to do. So, maybe we are called by God to press ourselves harder than we thought we could, for the sake of the Gospel.

 

This seems to be Paul’s point, and his challenge to us all: Train yourself for battle and you will be ready when the time comes. Every athlete understands that if you want to compete on an advanced level, you must do more than you imagined you could do if you are to win. Because all the other athletes are doing the same. The effort you put out the first time will not win your tenth race.

 

Paul says that the call of God is similar to the athletic strengthening process and to working to break your own records.

 

Here’s how Paul words his challenge to us all: “Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one gets the prize? Run in such a way as to get the prize.” 

 

Paul is saying that God calls us to go beyond our limitations for the sake of the Gospel. This is no jog in the park. Paul himself has already proved himself to have gone beyond his physical and psychological limits. And now he encourages us to go and do likewise: Go beyond what everyone else is giving is what God expects of us. Not that it is a competition. It is not. But that’s how hard Paul and Silas worked for Christ.

 

“Everyone who competes in the games goes into strict training. They do it to get a crown that will not last, but we do it to get a crown that will last forever. Therefore I do not run like someone running aimlessly; I do not fight like a boxer beating the air. No, I strike a blow to my body and make it my slave so that after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified for the prize.”

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After I have preached to others, how would I disqualify myself for the prize? I might break the rules. I might let up. I might take a shortcut to gloryg through bypassing uncomfortable effort.

 

Did God ever say that He wants us to experience comfortable Christianity? I think generations of churches that have been built by what we might call entry-level faith has created a false sense that following Jesus is easy. We have catered to immature believers and tried to win the crowds, and what we have harvested is a generation of Jesus followers who gently jog with the majority and imagine their level of dedication to be “good enough.”

 

God hath not promised skies always blue, 

Flower strewn pathways all our lives through;

God hath not promised sun with out rain,

Joy without sorrow, peace without pain.

 

But God hath promised strength for the day, 

Rest for the labor, light for the way;

Grace for the trials, help from above,

Unfailing sympathy, undying love. (Annie Johnson Flint)