What I Learned from the Hell Run

The Hell Run. Primarily a chance to have a laugh with friends, secondarily a 3-mile run that forces you to scale walls, army-crawl beneath barbed wire, slide on mud slides into mud-water, and oh and did I mention mud? Lots and lots and lots of mud.

 

 

So a few of my friends from my sister church all signed up (thank you Bmac!) for this run at 11 a.m. on our Saturdays off.

 

 

 

We all set off on the run together and by the first obstacle we had all taken to the paces we would keep, some (cough, Bmac) blazing in front, some (who shall not be named) kept the slower, steadier pace in back.

 

It was about half way through the race when the actual running portion of the race began to ware on me and my running-mate and good friend, Krystal. Our shoes were heavy with water from the river and our legs were feeling the hurtles we had just passed.

 

Not so coincidentally, Skatechurch, our sponsor, had printed on the back of our shirts: "The gates of hell shall not prevail against us." And as we were on this Hell Run, Krystal brought up the irony. Which got us thinking about Scripture. Which got us ping-ponging Scriptural references to running the race and persevering.

 

Krystal: "Run the race that is set before you..."

Me: "Do not grow weary while doing good..."

 

Krystal: "Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil..."

 

Me: "For live is to live for Christ, to die is gain..."

 

Krystal: "For those who wait on the Lord shall mount up on wings like eagles, shall run and not grow weary, shall walk and not faint."

 

Me: "I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength."

Krystal: "If God is for us, who can be against us?"

 

And on we went until we hurtled over, under, or through our next obstacle.

 

This is my favorite part of having one of my closest friends also be my comrade in God's army, that while we're out in the world, doing what we love and we find ourselves exhausted, what comes to our minds is Life, is Truth, is God's strength. We wouldn't get any sort of Christian-of-the-Year award for reciting bits and pieces of Scripture on this run, we had no incentive besides the truth behind those words; that they have been our strength while God has to built us up and mold us.

 

 

 

Needless to say we finished the race, caked in mud from mud-encrusted head to mud-soaked shoe. We never once left the other, and we finished the race well. And very much like another race we currently run, I know that with God as our strength and with fellow comrades encouraging us on our race, we will finish well.

"1Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, 2 fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith. For the joy set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. 3 Consider him who endured such opposition from sinners, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart."

-Hebrews 12: 1-3