The Human Race...

Have you ever thought about the human race? I watched a movie the other day called "The Switch" and the main character made a statement about the human race that caught my attention. He said "Look at us, running around, always rushed, always late. I guess that's why we call it the human race." I think that this statement was dead on. We are always running in this imaginary race towards the end... the end of what though? Grades, graduation, work, marriage, retirement. We strive to make these things the best they can be. We have our plans set in stone, we know where we want to live, where we want to work, people we want to date; but what if these plans got completely flipped upside down. What if our race turned into a steeple chase with a hurdles and a flood of water that greets us when we fail to clear the hurdle properly? Recently, it seems that I've fallen into that pool of water and all that I was running for has disappeared. So here I am stuck in the middle of a race with no idea where I'm going. All I know is that I am moving forward and when I get to a turn I turn left. And when I get to a hurdle I jump. And when I'm told to stop I'll stop. In Matthew 6:25-33 it says"Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than the clothing? Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life? And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O YOU OF LITTLE FAITH? Therefore do not be anxious, saying 'what shall we eat?' or 'what shall we drink?' or 'What shall we wear?' For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. BUT SEEK FIRST THE KINGDOM OF GOD AND HIS RIGHTEOUSNESS, AND ALL THESE THINGS WILL BE ADDED TO YOU!" I absolutely love that passage and I think about it every time I hit the hurdle and I land face first in that gorge of water. We all worry about so many things, but really there is nothing to worry about. So what if I stumble. So what if I fall. Jesus was bruised and bloody for me when he left, and I am not greater then he, so why should I live a easy, carefree life. I think the best illustration of this is to have a group of people draw a picture together. No one is allowed to talk, and when they draw they can only make one mark at a time. The picture in the end will look nothing like the picture any of them expected at the beginning. And the reason is that sometimes there is a greater picture that we have yet to see, and that is what everything is working together to create! The actor in "The Switch" concludes the movie with the thought "Every once in awhile in all the randomness, something unexpected happens, and it pushes us all forward. And what I'm starting to think. And what I'm starting to feel is that maybe... the human race isn't a race at all." I think this sums up life in a statement. In the midst of all our struggles, the curve balls, the failures, something great will happen that God has planned. So why be anxious because God will propel us forward, and to this finish if only we keep running.