I'm not Racing

I don't know how many times my two perpetually slow eaters have decided to turn lunch into a race.  Ironically, they sit there empty-mouthed as they argue their case about who will finish first.

"Listen, guys," I remind them. "This is not a race.  It doesn't matter who finishes first.  All that matters is that you eat your food."

Life isn't a competition.  And the sooner they learn that, the better.

I'm done with the racing business myself.  For much too long, I've been racing, mentally comparing myself with other people and wondering how I matched up.  I felt insecure when someone excelled and I failed.  Or when someone was continually accomplished and I was completely ordinary.

And then God began to show me the pride in that kind of race which broke my own sense of inferiority.  Suddenly I could live without racing all the time.  I didn't have to wear myself out trying to keep up with the best of them out there. I don't have to be the best.

I don't have to be the best if I am secure in who God created me to be. The entire riches in the Warehouse of Heaven are available to me because I am an heir of God's.  He doesn't withhold good gifts from his children.  One of those gifts is love.  He loves me with the same love that he loves Jesus (John 17:23) and basking in that love changes my life.

"Perfect love casteth out all fear," the Bible says.  To me that reads, "Perfect love for God casts out the fear that I don't match up or the fear that I'm not good enough."  And, "Perfect love for others casts out the fear that they are better than me."

Perfect love frees me to rejoice with those who are rejoicing.  It allows me to "esteem others better than myself" without getting despondent because I'm the guy in the dust.

I'm free to do that because I'm no longer tied down to racing.   

Life isn't a competition.  

I don't need to finish first. 

I only need to finish well.