I remember the day our younger son told us he was going out for cross country. He had not made the cut in basketball. He had never run with me, so I asked him why cross country. He answered confidently, "17 girls and 3 boys on the team." Suddenly, I understood.
Talking to one of our guests on the phone, I arrived at our son's first race, with some concern about his chances in the race. I worried even more when I saw that he was the only one wearing thick sweats on an 88 degree sunny afternoon. Quickly ending the phone call, I exhorted him to remove the extra weight of the sweats so that he could run freely. He grudgingly complied.
His whole life of sitting on the couch eating potato chips in his rear-view mirror, he ran like his life depended on it and he did really well. When he came down the home stretch, to the great surprise of my wife, I ran beside him in my suit urging him to finish strong. He may have run even faster to distance and disassociate himself from the crazy man in the suit!
The writer of Hebrews is not the only New Testament author who compares the Christian life to a race. After the writer reminds us of the Hall of Fame of faith, he places the faithful saints of the ages in a cloud of witnesses who surround us in an arena. To run the Christian race, we must divest ourselves of the excess weight of sin. We persevere and we run the race God has given to us with the full awareness that so many of our loved ones have run and finished well. We are not in this alone! Run well.