Tomorrow I run Boston. Anyone who has run it knows the course well. It's a straight route north from Hopkinton to Ashland through Wellesley up the hills of Natick down into Brookline and finishing on Boylston Street in downtown Boston. Not only has the course remained the same, but there are thousands of people running it with me and millions of people lining the race route and race officials, police, EMT, and volunteers there to be sure you know where you're going. There's no guessing. I can put all of my effort and energy into running the race and getting to the finish line. I have run races where the course isn't mapped or marked well - trust me when I say that there is nothing more frustrating in a race than getting lost and finding yourself back at the same point where you got lost, energy expended but not one step closer to the finish.
Dr. Jan Souman of the Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics has actually studied what humans do when we have no road map, no clue about where we're going...simply put, when we're lost. He's researched what happens to folks when they find themselves in the woods, out to sea, or in the desert without a compass or navigation tools. His findings? We go in circles. Literally. Our instincts fail us. Without a guiding light or a True North to follow, we keep ending up at the starting point where we got lost. All of the effort and energy we put in is literally wasted. Even if you have never been lost, you inherently know that effort and energy are finite resources - they eventually run out.
Do you have a course map for your life? Do you have a Way, or do you find yourself ending up in the same place you started, having wasted valuable effort and energy only to have repeated the same failures and disappointments, still feeling incredibly lost and empty? Our time here on this earth is finite. Time lost going in circles is time we won't get back. The clock keeps running. When you know where you're going, when you have direction and guidance and a clear vision of where it is you're headed, none of the effort and energy you expend is wasted. Every step is a step forward, a step closer to the finish. I'm not saying it'll be easy. Just as I will experience tomorrow, while the course map remains established and known, I will still feel pain and experience suffering. But I can rest in the assurance that even the difficult, painful steps along the way are serving a purpose of getting me that much closer to the finish. And oh what a finish it will be! Believe.
John 14:6 "And Jesus answered, I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life"
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