November 24: Of Carbs and Fat

Ezekiel 47:1-48:35

1 Peter 2:11-3:7

Psalm 119:49-64

Proverbs 28:12-13

The furthest I was fortunate to run before it became apparent the damage I'd caused my knees would preclude any further distances was 15 miles.  I never got to run a marathon, and so I never experienced "the wall" - the point at which energy sags precipitously, where the body has to shift from running on stored carbohydrates to running on fat.  At the start of the race, it all seems so doable, so easy - until the wall.  The New York Marathon is particularly ruthless - the 20 mile point is at the Willis Avenue Bridge where, unlike most other areas of the race, the road is devoid of spectators, and for two miles one faces the wall alone.  The ability to transition from carbs to fats determines whether the runner fails, falters, or finishes triumphantly.  

Our Christian life is very similar.  We look to run the distance, and in the beginning it is pretty easy.  We run on our own strength the race we think we're doing fine.  Then things get difficult.  One way they do - God's instructions are no longer as seamlessly consistent with what the world teaches.  

• We learn we are to "submit yourselves for the Lord's sake to every human authority" - and we don't think the president deserves our obedience.  

• We hear that slaves should "in reverent fear of God submit" themselves to their masters - and not just to those "who are good and considerate, but also to those who are harsh".  Aren't we supposed to be rebelling against such treatment?  And against slavery overall?

• And we read that wives are supposed to "submit yourselves to your own husbands" - even if they "do not believe the word"!  Isn't it precisely when they are not Christian that wives should be instructing, correcting, rejecting their husbands if they don't learn?

That is the 20 mile wall.  The challenge then is, do we continue in our own strength and thinking?  Or do we switch, as if from carbs to fats, to God's Word as our source of strength and direction?  The choice determines how far we go, and how we go - whether we fail, or finish triumphantly.  

Father, when we hit that wall of intellectual rebellion against complete submission to Your will and word, give us the courage and the strength to switch from our ways to Yours, from our thoughts to Yours, that we might finish the race triumphantly.