Do you not know that in a race all the runners compete, but [only] one receives the prize? So run [your race] that you may lay hold [of the prize] and make it yours.
1 Corinthians 9:24
I am a very goal-oriented person and I have learned that there are several very important things that I need to do in order to reach my goal. If you have goals or dreams for your life, they won’t merely happen because you want them to; you will need to do certain things. If we compare reaching our goals to a runner running a race to win, the first thing I believe we need to do is understand that each runner has a running style all his own. To me, that means we must be ourselves and not try to copy someone else. David wanted to kill Goliath and, after a time of being against the idea, King Saul finally told David that he could try, but he wanted David to wear his armor. David tried to go in Saul’s armor, but he was uncomfortable and realized that it wasn’t going to work for him.
Then Saul clothed David with his armor; he put a bronze helmet on his head and clothed him with a coat of mail.
And David girded his sword over his armor. Then he tried to go, but could not, for he was not used to it. And David said to Saul, I cannot go with these, for I am not used to them. And David took them off.
1 Samuel 17:38–39
In order to reach our goals, you and I must follow God’s leading. People will offer us a lot of advice, and some of it may be good, but some of it may not. Or it may be good advice, but simply not what will work for us. God has created us as unique individuals, and He does not lead all of us in the same way. So, if you want to win your race, you will need to find your own running style or your own way of doing things. Of course we can learn from other people, but we dare not try to copy them at the cost of losing our own individuality.
God has created us as unique individuals, and He does not lead all of us in the same way.
The next thing we must do to reach our goals is keep our eyes on the prize. After God told Joshua that he was to finish leading the Israelites into the Promised Land after the death of Moses, He said several very important things to Joshua. In the first nine verses of Joshua chapter 1, we find these instructions: Be strong (confident) and of good courage; turn not to the right hand or the left so that you may prosper wherever you go; and keep speaking and meditating on the Word of God.
And then—once again—Joshua is told to be strong, vigorous, and very courageous, be not afraid, neither be dismayed. God was obviously warning him that fear would come to him, but his reaction should be to “fear not.” He may have felt fear, but he couldn’t give in to it. He had to keep pressing forward no matter how he felt.
If this is the formula for success, then we should pay very close attention. God had already laid out the plans for the Israelites’ successful entry into the Promised Land. He said, “Every place upon which the sole of your foot shall tread, that have I given to you, as I promised Moses” (Joshua 1:3). All Joshua needed to do was to begin walking toward the goal in faith and not quit until he had succeeded. Of course he needed to be courageous, bold, confident, and fearless if he was to do that, but he was also told to keep his eyes on the prize and not look to the right or the left. That statement indicates that he had to maintain strong focus on the goal in order to reach it.
We all have circumstances in our lives that can derail us and prevent us from reaching our goals if we pay excessive attention to them. Do what the crisis demands, but don’t give it undue attention. Keep your conversation full of your goals, not your problems.
Scripture teaches us to look away from everything that will distract us unto Jesus who is the Author and the Finisher of our faith (see Hebrews 12:2). I believe that it is God who plants goals, dreams, and visions into our heart, and we need to follow His guidance in order to see them brought to completion. Our enemy, the devil, seeks to prevent our progress by providing trials and problems that will distract us if we let them. I realize that we cannot completely ignore our problems. There are things that demand our attention and we need to take care of them. Let’s learn to do our responsibility and cast our care upon the Lord. Most problems can be handled rather quickly if we do what we can do and choose not to worry about the rest. We are to do what the crisis demands and cast our care on God (see 1 Peter 5:7; Ephesians 6:13).
I encourage you to have the heart of a finisher. Make a decision from the beginning of your goal that you will finish no matter how difficult it is or how long it takes. Keeping our eyes on the prize makes the difficult times easier. We need to believe that the reward will come if we don’t give up. Jesus endured the cross for the joy of the prize that was set before Him (see Hebrews 12:2). To “endure” means to outlast the problem. Whatever problem you might be facing right now will eventually pass, so while the problem is still screaming at you, keep your eyes on your goal and look forward to winning your race and the prize of victory.
Even when I get very tired of going to the gym three times a week to lift weights and push my body in order to build muscle, I think about how much better I look and feel and how much better my clothes fit me when I am diligent in going. Keeping my eyes on the prize helps me reach my goal.
When I get weary from always being responsible for something, traveling and staying in hotels, and having jetlag, I keep my eyes on the prize of eventually standing before God and hearing Him say, “Well done thou good and faithful servant.” I also remember there are lots of people who still need to know the Lord, and that helps me to be determined to finish my race.
The same principle applies in your life. If you are in debt and your goal is to be debt-free, then you should keep the prize in mind of how wonderful it will be to have no debt when you get tired of disciplining yourself not to make purchases you can do without. When you get tired of going to work every day, think about the prize of your paycheck and being able to pay your bills and have food to eat.
If you’re on a diet and tired of not being able to eat everything you want, keep your eyes on the prize of being able to fit into the clothes that you hid in the back of your closet, hoping that someday you would be able to wear them again.
Don’t throw away your dreams in a moment of discouragement or weariness. Keep your eyes on the prize!
Don’t throw away your dreams in a moment of discouragement or weariness. Keep your eyes on the prize!
God’s Word tells us not to look to the right or the left, and that means don’t look around you. The prophet Isaiah instructed people not to look around them in terror.
Fear not [there is nothing to fear], for I am with you; do not look around you in terror and be dismayed…
Isaiah 41:10
If we look around at our circumstances excessively, we may end up terrified and dismayed, which means that we feel there is no way out of our problems or no way to reach our goals. With God there is always a way, because He is the Way!
God’s Word tells us to look up, for redemption is drawing close (see Luke 21:28). If we are to look up, then that means we should not look down. God told Lot and his wife not to look back at Sodom and Gomorrah (see Genesis 19:17). The apostle Paul states that the one thing most important to him was to look away from what was behind to what was ahead (see Philippians 3:13). Look forward to the good things ahead—this will keep you encouraged.
Let your eyes look right on [with fixed purpose], and let your gaze be straight before you.
Proverbs 4:25
We look at things in our thinking. We can look any direction we choose to, so why wouldn’t we choose to look at something that will keep us encouraged? We can imagine and see the good things that we are working toward even before we can see them with our natural eyes.
God also told Abraham to look up. Abraham and Sarah had no children, yet God had told him that He would make of him a great nation. How could that be? While they were waiting, Abraham complained to God about having no children. The Lord told Abraham to go outside his tent and to look at the stars, and if he could count them, that would be how many descendants he would eventually have (see Genesis 15:3–5). Wow! Abraham didn’t even have a child, so how could he have descendants? He and Sarah needed a miracle, because without one there was no hope of them having a child. I am sure that Abraham’s faith was tested and he felt afraid when he looked at his own body that was impotent, and Sarah’s, which was also too old to have children. He was in his tent, probably weary of looking at his circumstances, and God brought him out of his tent and told him to look up instead of around at his circumstances.
I think there is an important lesson in this example. Sometimes we can just get out of the house and go for a short walk and things will seem better. When you are weary and losing sight of your goals, go and have a cup of coffee with a friend—and make it someone who is encouraging. Quite often little things can make a big difference. Don’t discourage yourself by staring at your problems. Let’s merely glance at our problems, but fix our gaze on Jesus!
Sometimes we need to get away from circumstances and get a fresh vision. Looking at the stars often reminds us of the greatness of God. Do whatever you need to do to keep a fresh vision of your goals. Run your race to win and keep your eyes on the prize.
It is easy to begin a new thing. When something is new, it is exciting, and at the beginning, we have no idea how long it will take or how difficult it might be to see it all the way through to the finish. I don’t get excited anymore just because people tell me about a new thing they are beginning. I encourage them, but I don’t assume that they will finish just because they have begun. Sadly, my experience has been that there are lots of people who get a great idea, a goal, or a dream, and they begin, but somewhere along the way they turn back. The way becomes difficult and it is taking too long, so they quit and wait for something easier in life to come along. I believe you can be a finisher, but you will have to be determined! I want to encourage you to set your mind and keep it set on finishing your race and obtaining the prize.
Now, I don’t want to sound discouraging or negative by what I am about to say, but most things take longer than we thought they would, are more difficult than we had imagined, and cost us more than we planned. Even if we are dreamers, we must look at things realistically. Jesus told those who were planning to build a building to take time first to count the cost to see if they had what was required to finish.
For which of you, wishing to build a farm building, does not first sit down and calculate the cost [to see] whether he has sufficient means to finish it?
Otherwise, when he has laid the foundation and is unable to complete [the building], all who see it will begin to mock and jeer at him,
Saying, this man began to build and was not able (worth enough) to finish.
Luke 14:28–30
It is important for everyone to have the heart of a finisher, but I believe it is especially important for God’s children. After all, we represent Him, and He always finishes what He starts. Is there anything in your life that you are tempted to give up on? If there is, I am asking you to reconsider. Pray and ask if God wants you to give up, and unless you are sure that He does, I recommend that you press on. The only reason we should ever give up is if we realize somewhere along the way that we are not doing what God wants us to do.
Don’t let the fear of circumstances or the weariness of passing time cause you to give up. You might be tired of waiting, but I want to suggest that pressing forward is much better than going back. The Israelites frequently wanted to return to Egypt because the things they encountered frightened them and were not easy, but eventually some of them did make it to the Promised Land. Some of them finished their race and won the prize. They didn’t all make it, but those who had the heart of a finisher did.
Pressing forward is much better than going back.
Jesus said that He found satisfaction in doing the will of His Father and finishing His work (see John 4:34). I wonder how many people in the world are dissatisfied simply because they gave up on their dreams. We should not be people who are easily defeated. I really believe that if we stay close to God we can press through things that oppose us. He gives us the grace (power of the Holy Spirit) to do whatever we need to do in life. Don’t merely try to push through difficulties in the strength of your own flesh, but learn to be thoroughly dependent on God. He gives grace to those who are humble enough to receive it, but if we want to try it on our own, He will wait for us to exhaust our own efforts.
We can only find true satisfaction in doing the will of God. People often ask me when I am going to retire, and I find it to be an odd question. I never considered retirement because I don’t know how one can retire from a call God has placed on their life. I will change how I do things in order to get the rest I need as my age increases, but I don’t plan to quit. I am determined to finish my course! I want God to be proud of me, and I want to get my full reward when I cross the finish line.
Read what Jesus said about finishing:
I have glorified You down here on the earth by completing the work that You gave Me to do.
John 17:4
Jesus asked for His prize, so to speak, when He asked to be glorified. He wanted to return to the former glory He had before coming to the earth to pay for our sins (see John 17:5). He clearly said that He qualified for the prize because He finished the work He was sent to do. He said this because He had the heart of a finisher, even though He had not died on the cross yet and been resurrected from the dead. There was no thought at all of quitting. He still had many difficult things to go through, and I am sure that He felt all the fears that we experience, and yet He knew that He would finish.
The example of Jesus challenges and inspires us to become finishers too. No matter how difficult our task seems, we can have the heart of a finisher because the same Spirit that raised Christ from the dead dwells within us (see Romans 8:11). Let me encourage you to ask yourself, Have I set my mind to finish? If the answer is no, why not do it right now? Today—and every day moving forward—pray that you will be the kind of person who always finishes what they start.
God doesn’t remove every obstacle that could possibly prevent us from finishing our race and obtaining our prize; as a matter of fact, there are times when He places obstacles in our path in order to test and strengthen our faith. We are strengthened as we deal with difficulties, but if we run from all of them, we will never grow and become stronger in our faith and abilities.
A man found a cocoon for a butterfly. One day a small opening appeared. He sat and watched the butterfly for several hours as it struggled to force its body through the little hole. Then it seemed to stop making any progress. It appeared as if it had gotten as far as it could and could go no farther. Then the man decided to help the butterfly.
He took a pair of scissors and snipped the remaining bit of the cocoon. The butterfly then emerged easily. Something was strange. The butterfly had a swollen body and shriveled wings. The man continued to watch the butterfly because he expected at any moment that the wings would enlarge and expand to be able to support the body, which would contract in time. Neither happened. In fact, the butterfly spent the rest of its short life crawling around with a swollen body and deformed wings. It was never able to fly.
What the man in his kindness and haste did not understand was that the restricting cocoon and the struggle required for the butterfly to get through the small opening of the cocoon are God’s way of forcing fluid from the body of the butterfly into its wings so that it would be ready for flight once it achieved its freedom from the cocoon. Sometimes struggles are exactly what we need in our lives.
If God allowed us to go through all of life without any obstacles, it would cripple us. We would not be as strong as we could have been. Many times our obstacles are what God uses to give us the strength to fly, as long as we refuse to quit when there seems to be no way to go on. You can face your fears and overcome them, and when you do, you’ll often find them turning into a blessing.
God’s Word says in Romans 8:37 that we are more than conquerors. To me that means we choose to believe we can overcome anything that stands in our way with God’s help. It is amazingly freeing and good to trust that you can overcome problems before you even get them.
Are you dreading things that have not even taken place yet? If you are, you don’t have to because you can adopt the attitude of an overcomer. You can replace those dreads with a confident attitude that says, “No matter what comes my way in life, I can face it and overcome it with God’s help.” Will you decide today to have the attitude of an overcomer? If you have this confidence you can live without allowing fear to rule your decisions in life. This confident attitude eliminates dread in our lives, and that in turn sets us free from fear. Fear always begins with a feeling of dread and shrinking back from difficulty instead of boldly going forward. Dread is “baby fear.” It is not fully grown yet, but it will develop into full-grown fear if we feed it with wrong thinking and attitudes. Resist the devil at his onset by refusing even a minor dread and replacing it with an attitude that declares, “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me” (see Philippians 4:13).
Always remember: Don’t look to the right or the left, don’t look back, don’t look down in discouragement or despair, but look up and ahead at the prize that is waiting for those who go all the way through to the end fulfillment of their dreams.