We Have an Enemy
I have a dear, brilliant eleven-year-old grandson, Caleb. For several years he was extremely interested in long-distance running. It started when he and I ran together in a 5K race. He was seven at the time and I figured I’d run alongside him, encouraging him even as he would predictably need to slow down to a snail’s walking crawl. Half a mile in, Caleb decided to shoot off ahead of me. I never caught up. He beat me by several minutes. As a seven-year-old, second grader he came in third for all runners 19 and under. I watched proudly as the official placed the bronze medal around his neck.
And he ran long-distance for the next few years, fueled by his early successes. But he quit a few months ago. It turns out he never figured out how to competitively respond to a runner who was gaining ground on him, especially one that would eventually over-take him in the race. At some level, Caleb’s was a wondrous naivety. He was in the habit of running the race against himself—in several ways a healthy psychological perspective.
However, the reality he couldn’t contextualize was that there were fellow racers out to beat him.
I’m told by some track and field veterans that this is not all that unusual for eleven-year-old runners.
The Apostle Paul wrote the church at Corinth that their lives in Christ could be understood as a long-distance race lasting a life time. He noted that many run the race, but only one runner gets the prize (1 Corinthians 9: 24-27). The writer of Hebrews uses the same metaphor, imploring their readers to run this race with perseverance, fixing their eyes on Jesus. In running this race, the author further admonishes the participant to avoid running the race while carrying any extra weight. Cross-country races are not run, let alone won, when a participant has five-pound weights on their ankles.
More pointedly, employing the cross-country race metaphor, the author of Hebrews admonishes their reader to shed themselves of sinful patterns that act like extra weights and even like harmful obstacles in the race-path (Hebrews 12: 1-2).
Both the Apostle Paul’s and the author of Hebrew’s common admonition, employing basically the same metaphor, imply that the runner, the follower of Christ—who is called to daily “run” toward Him—require the healthy habit of self-examination. This habit, again, employing the running metaphor, asks the runner to identify and remove the vices, the voices, the distractions that are hindering our ability to faithfully run the race.
And, of course, the Scriptures make clear that though there are hindering weights and obstacles of our own making, at best called unhealthy attitudinal and behavioral habits of seemingly our own making, we do have an ultimate arch-enemy. This antagonist would love to see us blown-up in our journey or, better yet, racing fast and furiously toward a demoralizing, eternally-devasting cliff.
Like my brilliant grandson whose understanding of the race before him excluded the competitive recognition that anyone was out to beat him, many of us forget that there are forces, realities, and an ultimate enemy that seeks to conquer us, hinder us from running the race with joy, care, and faithfulness.
Paul D. Patton, Ph.D., is a professor of communication and theater at Spring Arbor University in Michigan. He has graduate degrees in Guidance and Counseling, Religious Education, and Script and Screenwriting, and a doctorate in Communication with an emphasis in theater arts. He has been married to his wife Beth for over forty years and has three daughters (all actresses)—Jessica, Emily, and Grace, three sons-in-law, David, Joe, and Eric, and four grandsons, Caleb Rock, Logan Justice, Micah Blaze, and Miles Dean.