Running a Good Race: by obeying truth

Who cut in on you and kept you from obeying the truth?

Galatians 5:7

In my high school days I participated in as many sports as a girl could in the late 50s. Basketball turned out to be my game of choice due to my height. The basketball-cum-track coach figured she could capitalize on my long legs in the high jump, so she added me to the track team. And when she needed a fourth for the girls’ relay at the last minute, I was up for the challenge. Much to my horror I did not make the transfer. I dropped the baton!   

Dropping the baton is a lot like having someone cut in on you ladies. Sure, it may have been a sloppy transfer but I let it happen, just as Paul’s friends in Galatia were letting the legalists cut in on the truth he had taught them. 

How do I reduce the likelihood of dropping the baton again? Train, train, train. Figure out all the variables—the condition of the track, the proximity of the runners, adapting to the pace. How do the Galatians keep from getting cut in on? How do we? Essentially, we train in the truth, know truth inside out, and live by it.  

Finding myself alone for a few minutes on my favorite hiking trail this summer—no pesky mountain bikes, no runners breathing down my neck—I let the blessings of solitude sink in and pondered truth. In that rugged mountain beauty a quote from Keats (Ode on a Grecian Urn, 1918) came to mind: “Beauty is truth, truth beauty.” Not what I was looking for, I thought to myself. Jesus is “truth” (John 14:6); “Your (God’s) word is truth”(John 17:17). 

Online english-for-students.com explains Keat’s quote this way: “The real beauty of a thing lies in its permanence…there is only one ultimate beauty in this world…truth which never perishes.” So true! Truth does not change with time—therein lies its beauty. 

Those who would cut in on you would love to convince you God had nothing to do with creating all that is beautiful, and that truth is of the moment. Don’t you believe them.    

Nancy P