As for us, we have all of these great witnesses who encircle us like clouds, each affirming faith’s reality. So we must let go of every wound that has pierced us and the sin we so easily fall into. Then we will be able to run life’s marathon race with passion and determination, for the path has been already marked out before us.
Heb 12:1 (Passion Translation)
Witnesses of Faith – Part 2
Go to PART 1
Sometimes, it’s the comments from the ‘onlookers’ of our lives that trip up our life-race the most. A few weeks ago, someone I don’t even know made a horrible comment about me on social media, and I allowed it to cripple my heart for a few days. That kind of thing happens to us all.
The writer of Hebrews tells us that including the humans that we share this earth with, we are also surrounded by a huge crowd of witnesses. In times passed, whenever I would find myself in a moment of greed or anger or hate or gossip… whatever… I would imagine their eyes piercing my soul, throwing their ‘judgemental’ look my way. I felt like I could never hide. Not from the unseen crowd of witnesses, and the flesh and blood ones too.
Hebrews 11 gives us an insight into who made up this crowd, it included:
Abel
Enoch
Noah
Abraham
Sarah
Isaac
Jacob
Joseph
Moses
Rahab
Gideon
Barak
Samson
Jephthah
David
Samuel…
And many more. They are called “Faith champions… of whom the world was not worthy” (Heb 11:38).
You don’t have to look hard at that list to see the types of people on it…
Sarah doubted God and sent Abraham into the arms of her servant; Moses got angry and disappointed and died before reaching the promised land; Rahab sold her body for money, David was a murderer and an adulterer and king who abused his power…
Yet, these are our champions of faith. Our crowd of witnesses.
They are not perfect people, not in the slightest. But they are ones who pressed on, who stripped off the weight, who got in the middle of it all and gave their life-race a good, red-hot go; holding onto the divine in every way they could, living by faith. I couldn't think of a group of people I would like to hear cheering me on more…
These witnesses, men and women whom we’ve shared the air and dust with, whose stories we read and relate to, whose legacies beat in time with the eternal dance of life… are the ones we should look to. Jesus himself, although he knew no sin, he knew temptation. He was not at all timid or shy or worried about getting into the thick of life with all who called upon him. Past, present and future.
Theodore Roosevelt said,
“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly.”
Your failings and sins and shames and worries and aches and pains… those things are not the obstacles to your life-race. The ability to ignore them, strip them off, and be healed of them, and then get up again and keep on going, is.
Don’t listen to the critics, don’t listen to the condemnation or the shame. Train your ear to the voice of those witnesses, to the heart of God that tells you to get up, keep going, run with all you’ve got. Because your life is worth living.
And in the middle of it all ask yourself what you are calling out to those trying to run their life-race beside you. Condemnation? Or life, and more life.
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