Who’s Your Trainer?
My mom and I recently went to San Antonio to watch my nephew perform at the All-State choir concert. He had won 2nd place bass in the small school division and was one of about 100 kids who had placed at the state level. If I’d been blindfolded, you couldn’t have convinced me that I was listening to High School students — they were THAT good!
After the concert, the kids exited one way and the audience another, all to meet in a common area on a lower level of the convention center. When my brother, my mom and I entered the area, we saw Daniel, my nephew, staring at the escalators, watching for us to come down. When my brother tapped him on the back, Daniel turned around and fell into my brother’s arms, embracing him for several minutes. Daniel was sobbing and I saw tears stream down my brother’s face as well. To give a little insight, Daniel had been sick for several weeks leading up to this concert. He and his family had been in San Antonio for the week and the hours of practices were grueling. However, this was Daniel’s dream, his goal for which he had worked so very hard, and when he walked onto that stage, he gave it his all, because that’s how he’d been raised and trained. He was not about to let his sickness or his fatigue stop him from grabbing hold of this prestigious opportunity.
It's been over a week since that concert, and I can’t get the vision out of my mind…my brother and his son clinging to each other as they cried. All that I could think of was my nephew is the epitome of perseverance. THROUGH his struggle, he pressed on. Through his pain, he kept his eye on the goal and didn’t let the setbacks derail him from the prize. Daniel went out on that stage and left it all there; when the concert was over, he was DONE. I think that finality and the overwhelming satisfaction that he must have felt were the cause of his tears.
How many times, when we’re faced with an illness or a looming situation do we give up? Why is it so hard for us to keep our eye on the prize, to recognize that our Father is also waiting with open arms, happy to hold us in our most trying times, in our deepest sadness or our most thrilling successes? Hebrews 12:1 says “Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight…and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us.” What an example Daniel was to the other, younger performers. They witnessed his weight yet saw his strength to push through it. That should be the goal of every believer, because there will always be someone watching to see how we weather the storm. Do we fight it or manage it? Do we give up or do we persevere? The answer is in your training.