Run With Endurance
Many, many years ago, back in the ”dark ages” before you could buy chicken in the grocery store already cleaned, cut up and ready to be cooked, you had to raise your own chickens. If you wanted to have fried chicken on Sunday, you had to catch one of your chickens, wring its head off, catch it again, put it in hot water, pick off the feathers, chop off its feet, get rid of the insides, and then begin preparing it for frying. It was quite the production!
I remember it well. I would be playing in our backyard on Saturday afternoon and my mother would come out of the house and ask me to help her catch one of the chickens. This was back in the day when you didn’t name your chickens or have any kind of friendship with them. They were giving you eggs and they were going to be food for the table.
When we caught that bird of the week, my mother would hold it by the head and spin it around in the air and…snap…off came the head in her hand and the rest of the bird fell to the ground. But what happened next was something to behold. That bird would run and flop and (in my opinion) chase me all over the yard. Believe me, I ran with endurance! It seemed that wherever I ran, it chased me, until its heart finally gave out and it stopped, dead on the ground. Even then, I was leery of what it might do…even though I had lived through this scenario many times. I kept on running every week to avoid that headless creature.
Now, you may be thinking, she’s lost her mind, or what a gruesome way to begin a post. But while reading Hebrews 12 recently, that memory came to my mind as I read part of the first verse: “let us run with endurance the race that is set before us.” That word “run” actually means to “keep on running.” Just as it felt like that headless chicken was chasing me, I knew I needed to run to get away from it.
More importantly, the writer of Hebrews tells us that we need to keep on running to get away from something far more devastating. Earlier in the verse the writer tells us what it is – “let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance…” How often do we keep on running away from sin? We are surrounded by it on a daily basis just as that verse says, “sin which clings so closely” (emphasis added). It is ever before us and seems to follow us wherever we go. Sometimes it appears as if we are running toward sin rather than away from it!
Just as I knew that my mother was close by to protect me from that headless chicken, verse 2 of chapter 12 tells me how to run away from sin with endurance by “looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith…” We are always safe when we keep ourselves close to the One who was willing to give His life for us.
The story of the headless chicken is funny. The message given to us in Hebrews 12:1-2 is life altering. It tells us how to protect ourselves from sin which is ever present.
“…let us run with endurance the race that is set before us…” (Hebrews 12:1)
AUTHOR: Donna Faughn
