Excerpt

The Race Is On

When I was in the ninth grade, I joined the Shumway Junior High track team. I was a “miler.” In my first race I competed against runners from three other schools. We approached the starting line and took our positions. The starter lifted his pistol high and called out: “On your mark! Get set!” Then . . .

Pop-pop!

“Shumway runner jumped the gun!” he shouted.

“Shumway runner?”

“Yes, sir?” I said.

“Do you know how many laps you have to go when you run the mile?”

“Yes, sir,” I answered. “Four laps.”

“That’s right, you have four laps to run. So there’s no need to jump the gun. Why are you jumping the gun?”

I proudly called out my answer: “Because I want to win, sir!”

“Shumway runner,” he said, “how you start the race is not what’s important. What’s important is how you finish it.”

This was true for a junior-high miler, but it’s even truer in all of life. How we start the race is nowhere near as important as how we finish it. Anyone can have an enthusiastic beginning, but few can go the distance. To do that requires running a balanced race. We need to be able to weather disappointments, discouragements, and setbacks and still stay on track.





Is Balance Really All That Important?



Compare imbalance in your life to the ride you get in a car with tires that are out of balance. Can you get where you’re going? Yes. But on the way the ride will be bumpy and uncomfortable. It will cause you stress and pain. And there is always the chance that the imbalance will cause a major setback in your trip.

Yet, if you get there anyway, why is balance so terribly important? Because people who lack a sense of balance in their lives lose so very much. Some lose their zeal for God. Some lose their families. Some lose their sanity. Almost all lose their joy.

Well, that’s not me, you may be saying. I mean, sure, I do spend too much time at work, and I don’t get any exercise, but other that that, my life is pretty well balanced.

Pretty well balanced? That means you have work to do. For you see, if any one area gets out of balance, it automatically impacts and handicaps the others. A lack of balance in one area means a lack of balance everywhere.

Back in the 1800s, there were slaves who, though freed by the Emancipation Proclamation, still chose to live in slavery. Why? Because for them freedom was a frightening unknown.

They were not alone in this. Consider the Israelites in biblical times who were freed from their slavery in Egypt. Very soon they were longing for the leeks, garlic, and cucumbers they ate in captivity. They were willing to go back to Egypt and become slaves again just to satisfy their appetites!

This is one of the great dangers of imbalance. Once we get used to it, it seems comfortable enough to us. We put up with the bumpy road or the pain and stress the ride causes, because it’s all we know. We assume that this is as good as it gets. We adjust to a life out of balance, and we excuse the discomforts, setbacks, and even the enslavement it causes us.





From My Heart to Yours



My parents are my most enduring, influential role models. My dad, Gerald Marvel, was a pastor throughout my whole life. Little did our family expect that my dad, busy with all the cares of pastoring, would end up in a mental hospital. He had a total emotional shutdown. “Are you ashamed of me, Lori?” he asked sadly when I flew to Portland, Oregon to be with my parents. There in Room 105 of the hospital I was trying to be an “agent of comfort,” but was mostly seething with uncontrollable emotions. “Lori, I just couldn’t do it anymore. I was doing all the reading, praying, preaching, memorizing, counseling, all the weddings and baptisms—my system just shut down. I’m sorry.” Not knowing where to channel my anger, I turned on my mom. “How could you do this? Dad sheds a few tears and you put him in a straitjacket,” I exaggerated. My husband Kurt pointed out that of all the people who loved and stood by my dad, it was my mom who had enough guts to do what needed to be done: admitting him to the hospital.

It’s easy for us to write off those who go through this kind of difficult experience. Ah, they’re just weak, they haven’t prayed enough, they just need to read the Bible more. Yes, it’s easy to write someone off—until it’s your own dad, who did pray enough, did read his Bible enough. In that hospital room, the psychologist, Dr. Dave Agnor, looked at me. “Let’s go in the hallway, Lori. I have something I need to share with you.” Puzzled by this, I complied. Dr. Agnor looked me straight in the eye, “Lori, you are the most like your father in temperament. Take ten years off your dad’s age, and that’s how old you can expect to be when you shut down like he did.” That hit me.

The restoration of my dad was much more than a set of new bodily habits. Watching him over these last years, I’ve come to see we need to nurture all aspects of our being.

We are going to have difficulty finishing our race if we continue at the speed at which we are running. If we are going to persevere, then we must learn to run a balanced race. This will require spiritual nourishment; physical, mental, and emotional health; and balance in our various relationships, from family to church to work, and everywhere in between. Busyness must be countered with rest, comfort, and refreshment.