Run Light, Live Right: Shedding Spiritual Weight for the Ultimate Race

Galatians 5:7 ->  You were running the race so well. Who has held you back from following the truth?

Matthew 16:26 ->  And what do you benefit if you gain the whole world but lose your own soul? Is anything worth more than your soul?

Hebrews 12:1 -> Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a huge crowd of witnesses to the life of faith, let us strip off every weight that slows us down, especially the sin that so easily trips us up. And let us run with endurance the race God has set before us.

Galatians 5:7 is better as a pretense than it is past, current tense. If it was, it would read, “To ensure you always run your race well, discern who is attempting to, or is capable of, holding you back.”

By doing so, you are applying Hebrews 12:1, which demands that before we start the race of endurance that God has for us, we go on a spiritual diet and lose the unnecessary and unneeded weight that will slow us down and eventually prevent us from winning.

I love to work out. While living in Dallas, my love for working out led me to D1 Sports Training. D1 provides hardcore training for the adult athlete. If my schedule allowed, I’d go twice a day, attending both their strength and boot camp classes. These classes were no joke; the grind was real. Often, to make it even more challenging, I would occasionally wear a thirty-pound weight vest!

Twice yearly, the top eight athletes from our gym would compete against the top eight athletes from the D1 in Waco in a rigorous workout called “the Baby.” Going into my first “the Baby” workout, I was forewarned by the other athletes about how hard the workouts were. I remember my boy Chris telling me it was by far the hardest thing he’d ever done. Our friend McKenzie, a former track star, echoed Chris, telling me she’d take the rest of the day off from work because she could not move after doing “the Baby.” Lastly, Wes chimed in and shared that he’d always puke after doing “the Baby.”

The week of my first “the Baby” workout, to ensure I was in tip-top shape, I decided to wear the 30-pound weight vest for every workout! On Tuesday, Coach B noticed how frequently I was wearing the vest and suggested I drop the vest for the remainder of the week so I’d be fresh for “the Baby” on Saturday. Out of arrogance, pride, and ignorance, I told Coach B I felt fine and, being that I was a former college athlete and current basketball trainer, that I knew my body and what it could handle.

I continued to wear the vest for the two workouts daily for the remainder of the week and felt good Saturday morning as we were set to start the big competition. I hit the ground running, and our team was neck and neck with the guys from Waco. As we got deeper into the competition, my back began to get tight. At first, it was minor and something I could fight through, but as we continued, it got worse. By the time we entered the last competition, the four-person tug of war, I was really feeling it. But being the ultra-competitor I was, and knowing the tug-of-war would determine if we won and kept the trophy at our gym, I convinced myself I could thug it out and will my way through it.

Unfortunately, in the middle of the tug-of-war, my back tightened up so badly that I let go of the rope, which led to us being overpowered by the Waco team and losing both the trophy and gym bragging rights. After the fact, as I sat there on the ground, disappointed in myself, owning the fact I let my team down, I had to acknowledge that if I had humbled myself to trust my coach, I would not have taken an L. Instead, my arrogant, ignorant, and prideful disposition was the source of an avoidable defeat.

Deep Dive 1 - I hope my experience illustrates properly what God’s word says and why we should apply Galatians 5:7 before we begin our races, and not during or post-race. As this long grueling race God has for us is a marathon and not a sprint, if we choose to be arrogant enough to think we can carry the weight of relationships that weigh us down and prevent us from not only running the race but running and completing it in a way that reflects and glorifies God, we, like me working out, will be able to carry it for a while, but at some point, we will fall short.

Deep Dive 2 - Circling back to Hebrews 12:1 - Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a huge crowd of witnesses to the life of faith, let us strip off every weight that slows us down, especially the sin that so easily trips us up. And let us run with endurance the race God has set before us.

Remember Galatians 5:7? It asks the question, who held you back from running your race well? Let’s be proactive and determine beforehand who is capable of or is currently weighing you down from running your races. Think about me training: my weight was external. I did the work to lean down to run my race, but because I chose to voluntarily carry external weight, it slowed me down. As you consider that, think about this: how bad would it feel to know you have done what you need to do to remove the weight internally needed to run, yet you are slowed down because of the external weight from others that you choose to carry?

Now, as it asks in Galatians 5:7, who has, is, and is capable of slowing you down?