I want to be the one!

As things begin to unwind or wind down I reflect back on where I am, compared to where I wanted to be.

In my Christian walk, I wanted to be the one... the one who gave anything and everything in pursuit of God. My heart still screams this thought, but I missed the boat somewhere along the way, and now I feel like I am just trying to survive.

I still feel the same fervor to draw closer to God, to serve Him, but I feel dirty now. Not because I have done everything wrong... I just didn't do everything right! I feel like I haven't tried as hard as I could, I don't feel any where near as close to where I wanted to be. There is no greater pain than the realization of how far away you are from how close He wants you to be.

I have always wondered what made the heroes of the Bible heroes. Why did God choose them? And what can I do so He will choose to use me that way? Was it because they were special and I'm not? I don't mean that I need a special place of recognition... or my story told in the bible. All I want is to do my very best... to walk into that banquet for the marriage of the lamb and have God lean out over the table, look at me and wink. A sign between Him and me, a wink that says ''I know''. I have seen you; I know what you have overcome... and I am proud of you. Well done my child.

We have so little time to become who or what He wants us to be and the final shape of what we become determines how we will spend eternity with Him. So many fall short, and so many more don't even show up for the race.

We all run a race. It's a race against our selves. And God expects us to win.

1 Corinthians 9:24 Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one gets the prize? Run in such a way as to get the prize.

We as Gods children are rounding the final turn of what is to come. This is the point in the race... in our life... where we need to sprint to the finish... wearing blinders to every distraction, determined to win.

Are you in the race? Are you running to win? Will there be a prize waiting for you when you step up on the podium…

…or will it be a consolation prize for showing up?