We want everyone around us to believe we have it all together—and we don’t. We fear everyone else is living the lives they post and we are the only imposters. And so, the race is on. The race to perfe...
In his book The Burden is the Light, Jon Tyson shares how, as a child, he had excelled as a runner, winning a number of races and even breaking state records. But everything changed when another athle...
Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set b...
Run beloved, run Lay aside every weight Every worry Every excuse Every inner critic shouting against inspiration Lay aside the sin that clings so closely Every self-serving motivation Every self-medi...
James 1:2-4, Colossians 3:23-24, 1 John 3:1-3, 2 Timothy 4:7-8, Romans 12:1-2, Psalm 51:10-12, Hebrews 12:1-2
Eternal and Glorious God, Your grace calls us toward growth and service in You. Yet today we acknowledge the many times we have forgotten Your mercy and rejected Your love. Forgive us when we sin agai...
O my Savior, help me. I am slow to learn, prone to forget, and weak to climb; I am in the foothills when I should be on the heights; I am pained by my graceless heart, my prayerless days, my poverty o...
Have you not known? Have you not heard? The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He does not faint or grow weary; his understanding is unsearchable. He gives powe...
Have you not known? Have you not heard? The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He does not faint or grow weary. His understanding is unsearchable. He gives power to the...
The Barcelona Olympics of 1992 provided one of track and field’s most incredible moments. Britain’s Derek Redmond had dreamed all his life of winning a gold medal in the 400-meter race, and his dream...
I recently heard a story about a race in which one runner had a significant lead over the rest of the field. As the man rounded the final turn, the crowd roared as he inched closer and closer to the f...
The creation of a white standard in the world during the age of exploration, and the white structural privilege prevalent for so long in America, led to what is often called “white privilege”. This is...
Religion has always been woven into American politics. John Quincy Adams liked to read the Bible in the mornings and would plunge naked into the Potomac for a swim before attending his weekly Sunday c...
Proverbs 15:18, Ephesians 4:2-3, Matthew 5:9, Philippians 2:3-5, Luke 10:25-37, Romans 12:17-21, Colossians 3:12-13
Just before Christmas, my whole family piled into our kid-moving vehicle and rushed to the nearest mall to grab some last minute Christmas presents before dashing to a holiday party. As usual, we were...
Just before Christmas, my whole family piled into our kid-moving vehicle and rushed to the nearest mall to grab some last minute Christmas presents before dashing to a holiday party. As usual, we were...
The concept of humanity’s being divisible into different races has no scientific validity. This has always been the case, even before the advent of rapid global travel enabled the further mixing of pe...
Philippians 2:3-4, Galatians 6:2, Matthew 20:26-28, 1 John 3:18, 1 Corinthians 12:25-26
There was a story going around about the Special Olympics. For the hundred-yard dash, there were nine contestants, all of them so-called physically or mentally disabled. All nine of them assembled at ...
We tend to spoil any good thing, human as we are. We turn the gifts of God into coping mechanisms, just like I did wine, and we do it with any old gift. Consider my friend Rich, a good and right man w...
Pinterest images display perfectly planned and executed birthday parties, not three-year-old’s crying because their turn with the bat didn’t break the pinata. Instagram posts feature shots of happy p...
The Latin root of curiosity means “cure,” which makes me wonder if it isn’t a way to heal some of our oldest sicknesses. Like, perhaps, the “amnesia of affluence” that theologians point out in the Bib...
God of freedom, whether we like to admit it or not, we do not treat everybody with equality. We silently judge others based on appearance, social status, and even race. Please give us the courage to m...
In the sport of cycling, one of the most important things necessary to be successful in a race is the ability to manage the timing of when “to burn a match.” This is a phrase that all bike racers know...
All kinds of competition are comparisons of the abilities or performance of one person or team to that of another. From elementary school spelling bees to professional sports, contestants compare thei...
Racism springs from the lie that certain human beings are less than fully human. It’s a self-centered falsehood that corrupts our minds into believing we are right to treat others as we would not want...
The runners for the Special Olympic, 400-meter dash were being helped to their marks. As I watched, a gentleman in a three-piece suit jumped up in the stands in front of me and began yelling, “Lenny! ...
Randy Alcorn relates meeting Margaret Holder, born to missionary parents in China and interned by the Japanese with Eric Liddell, the “Flying Scotsman,” whose story is featured in Chariots of Fire . ...