Since we have a such a huge crowd of men of faith watching us from the grandstands, let us strip off anything that slows us down or holds us back, and especially those sins that wrap themselves tightly around our feet and trip us up; and let us run with patience the particular race that God has set before us. Hebrews 12:1 (Living Bible)
When I was young, I was a tomboy. I climbed trees — and jumped out of them. I played baseball and football with the boys in the neighborhood. I didn’t want anything to do with any “sissy” activity. And, it bugged me to no end that as I grew older, the boys could play organized sports, and I couldn’t. I was very competitive, and there was just nowhere in “my day” for a young woman to compete. Although I played intramural basketball in college, Title IX had not yet ushered in women’s sports into colleges, and I never played in an arena before a cheering crowd.
Hebrews 11, known as the faith chapter, lists the heroes of our faith– those men and women who did play in the arena. In our Hall of Faith are Abel, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Sarah, Issac, Jacob, Joseph, Moses’ parents, Moses, the people who marched around Jericho, Rahab, Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, David, Samuel, and the prophets. Then, the writer of Hebrews goes on to speak about others who showed great faith. They were the unnamed who “were tortured and refused to be released, so that they might gain a better resurrection. Some faced jeers and flogging, while still others were chained and put in prison. They were stoned; they were sawed in two; they were put to death by the sword. They went about in sheepskins and goatskins, destitute, persecuted and mistreated — the world was not worthy of them. They wandered in deserts and mountains, and in caves and holes in the ground.”
President Theodore Roosevelt said, “It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”
The older I grow, the more I think about the race I am running. But until reading Hebrews 12:1 in the Living Bible, I never thought about another meaning for the verse as it is translated in the King James Version: “Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us.” Now, I know some people do not like Bibles which are paraphrases as the Living Bible is, but it gave me a new perspective about my faith.
There is not just a cloud of witnesses watching us, there is a grandstand full of the who’s who of faith. They are not just watching me, they are pulling for me. They are cheering for me. They are encouraging me in my race. They want me to sprint from one end zone to the other. They want me to get up when I am knocked down. They have been through what I have been through and so much more, and they have received their reward. They want me to do the same. I am in the arena, and they are in Heaven’s grandstands cheering me on.
And, they are there for you, too. Suit up. Get in the game. We can’t disappoint those champions in the grandstands.
Bettye Bunch
November 26, 2008
[About the photos: The top photo shows the stadium at the U. S. Military Academy at West Point. Around the deck are the names of their Heisman Trophy winners: Doc Blanchard (1945), Glenn Davis (1946), and Pete Dawkins (1958). The bottom photo shows the U. S. Naval Academy stadium in Annapolis. Around the deck are the names of all the battles that the Navy engaged in during WWII. Although neither photo that I took is exceptional, I thought they were a good illustration for the men and women of faith who have fought and won their battles and are now witnessing us as we fight our battles.]
