God Call

My wife and I ran the Oklahoma City Memorial Half Marathon this past weekend. This was the first event of this kind that my wife has ever run, and I am so proud of her. This was my first long event since my back surgery last May. I don’t have to tell most of you, that when you get to age 38, it becomes tougher and tougher to get back in shape. One of the things that was so inspiring about this event for me was to know that you can do it and many others have and are getting into shape. There were 27,000 people running in this race!

As you know, most people can not just decide on Saturday to run a half marathon and actually run it on Sunday. There is a lot that goes into being able to do a race at this distance. My wife and I have read running magazines and web articles. We bought all of the right equipment, experimenting with many different kinds of shoes, shorts, shirts, water containers, food, etc. We ordered our life to be able to train – my wife ran in the mornings before the kids were up, and I ran in the evenings after they went to bed. We used a training program that told us how many miles to run on what day, and we used this program for months. Our next goal is to do the White Rock Marathon (full) in December. This will take even more training!

As I was thinking about all of this and considering 27,000 people at this race (most of whom trained and strategized just like we did), I began to dream of what it would look like if that many people put that much effort into reaching the world for Christ. Our one, most important job on this planet is to tell other people about Jesus Christ, and most believers either don’t do it at all or just shoot from the hip sporadically. We are not even talking about reaching a tribe that has never heard about Jesus! What might it look like if a church got serious about the Great Commission the same way we get serious about other things? How would your life look different if you began to train and strategize to reach a lost world for Christ?

If you can diet and train to get into shape, can you read a book about missions? If you can spend money on supplements, shoes, entry fees, etc., can you spend money to take a class on missions or go on a mission trip? Think about the possibilities of God’s people getting serious to train and strategize in order to reach the nations for Jesus! If I can help you to start somewhere, I would highly recommend you reading my favorite book on missions: A Passion for the Heart of God by John Zumwalt. It will cost you two trips to Starbuck’s and maybe a few hours of extra time. It’s not too late to start training!