Father, Help Me to Finish Well.

Today is sports day at Theo's nursery, and he's talked about it all week.

So of course, last night we had black beans for dinner (we tell him that they have speed juice in to make him faster, so it's his favorite thing to eat).

And of course this morning, he's in his Lightning McQueen t-shirt (the race car from his favorite film Cars), and he's got his light-up trainers on (sneakers), and he's been tearing round the kitchen ever since, testing the black beans to see if they're working.

I'm racing this morning too, but in my own far less charming way, trying to write this devotional as the sports day starts in 45 minutes and I'm not even halfway through.

And it's got me thinking about the difference between his races today and the one Hebrews talks about. "Let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus."

Theo's race will be over in about eleven seconds. Sports day is full of short sprints. It is for 3-4 year olds after all.

The trouble is, I think we often keep trying to run the race of faith in the same way. Sprinting.

But the walk of faith is not a sprint. It's a race measured in decades, most of it run at a pace that never once feels like winning.

But I still go looking for "speed juice". A shortcut that will get me to where I want to be quicker.

The book that will finally fix my prayer life. The new worship album that will let me feel the Holy Spirit like the first time again. The burst of motivation from reading a devotional that makes me want to change and be better.

I want my faith to arrive the way Theo wants his legs to go faster, seconds after swallowing a spoonful of black beans. I want to be further along than I am, and I want to get there quickly.

And that's just not how it works.

The race God has set in front of me is not won in one glorious sprint. It's won in the slow, unglamorous, mostly unwatched business of showing up today, tomorrow, and the day after, and the ten thousand days after that.

Reading the Bible on the mornings I don't feel like it. Praying when no one's watching and it's not been answered after months and months. Choosing Him again in a moment so ordinary you'd never think to photograph it.

I used to think that was the boring bit, the filler between the real, mountaintop moments when faith actually feels like something.

I don't think that anymore. I think the plodding IS the race. The perseverance is the whole event. What looks like nothing happening is, quite often, the exact place the real work is being done.

Maybe you're worn out from trying to sprint a race that was only ever meant to be run slowly. Maybe you're tired of looking for the shortcut, the thing that finally makes you fast, and quietly discouraged that after all these years you still feel so slow.

Hear this: you don't need speed juice. You never did.

You just need to stay in the race tomorrow. That's all. Not fast. Faithful. Eyes off the clock and fixed on Jesus, one plain, slow step and then the next, for as long as the race takes.

Whether you're flying this morning or barely moving, it counts the same. Keep going.

Father, help me to finish well, to stay faithful, and to keep my eyes on You.