“For God has said, ‘I will never fail you. I will never abandon you.’ So we can say with confidence, ‘The Lord is my helper, so I will have no fear. What can mere people do to me?’” – Hebrews 13:5-6
My dad and I were talking the other day about his experience running track at Baylor University in the late ’70s and early ’80s. He recently ran into an old teammate that he hadn’t seen in over 40 years, and it reminded him of something that this guy did while they were running the high hurdles in college.
He said, “It was the Drake relays…one of the biggest races of this guy’s life…and for some reason when the gun went off and the race began, as this world-class athlete approached the first hurdle, instead of jumping over the hurdle (like every other competitor on the track) this guy chose to run around the hurdle instead, which immediately disqualified him from the race.”
It was crazy, the guy knew before the race that the hurdles would be there. The whole purpose was to jump the hurdles and keep going. But instead, he just disqualified himself by running around them, instead of facing them head-on.
This reminded me of Paul’s perspective on life, as he talks about how life is like a race. Listen, as much as we would love to, you can’t run around the hurdles in your life. You’ve got to get over them!
The good news is that God promises to give you what you need in those moments to overcome the obstacles in your path. Hebrews 13:5-6 says, “For God has said, ‘I will never fail you. I will never abandon you.’ So we can say with confidence, ‘The Lord is my helper, so I will have no fear. What can mere people do to me?’”
Hurdles in life are inevitable. There is nothing you can do to remove them from your life. God promises they will be there. The question is, are you going to try and run around them, only to realize you can’t, or are you going to face them head-on? The choice is yours. But the hurdles are coming!