THE RACE

Looking at it from the spiritual aspect, a race is a journey every Christian starts right from the moment they profess Jesus Christ as their personal Lord and Savior, and whether we like it or not, it's expedient that we all finish that race, that journey according to what Paul wrote in the book of 1st Corinthians 9 vs 24.
One of my Mummies once said that it's not possible for a Christian to be stagnant spiritually, it's either you are progressing or regressing. You just can't be in one place. Doing what exactly?  It is only in the spiritual realm that someone will face a particular direction but instead, walk or run back in the opposite direction. This is what's happening to most Christians nowadays. We know the way and the right thing to do, in fact we are on the way but instead of going forward, we are rather going back. To some, it might be a step backwards or two. To some, it could be more than that.
There is only one thing that causes a Christian to regress and that is SIN (satan's identification number). The Bible asked a question in Psa 24 vs 3 that "Who shall ascend into the hill of the Lord?  Or who shall stand in his holy place?". Then it later gave the answer in the next verse "He that has clean hands and a pure heart, who has not lifted up his soul unto vanity nor sworn deceitfully".

Distraction is another main reason why some Christians won't make it to the finishing line. I could remember a true life scenario my brother told me happened during his Primary school days.
There used to be particular boy in his class that was the fastest runner in the school. Any sport house this boy is distributed to is likely to win the Inter-house competition cup. The day for the Inter-house sport came and of course everyone was expectant. He was to run a 400m race, his opponents looked defeated already. Infact they already gave him the first position, they were only striving for the second or third. But this boy had a weakness nobody knew could prevent him from finishing that race. He loves food.
The race started this day and as usual he was leading and was almost getting to the finishing line but within a short period of time, he allowed the cheers of the crowd get to him and he got distracted. He looked at where the crowd is and suddenly he saw his younger sister eating his lunch from his school bag. Immediately he saw this he started shouting at her to stop eating his food but due to the noise from the crowd, his sister couldn't hear him and when he noticed this, he left the field and went to meet her personally. Everyone was so surprised he could take his lunch as his first priority at that point but of course why won't he, he is gluttonous remember. He was disqualified from the race that meant so much to his Sport house. We should be able to guess the rest of the story.

The most important lesson from the above story is that the boy allowed the praises of people get to him. Those praises were actually due to his past victories. He had won many races and so he didn't see any reason why he couldn't win that particular one but little did he know that his love for food could prevent him from winning and so got him disqualified.
So distraction can also be a major hindrance from finishing that race. Distractions can come in form of praises from people and it's our responsibility to make sure it doesn't prevent us from getting to that finishing line.
I pray we shall not be disqualified from this heavenly race In Jesus Name.