The Finish Line

It has been an awfully long time since I have run any sort of seri­ous race. I think the last time I was in a for­mal track event was when I was in the eighth grade. I remem­ber run­ning a 220 yard sprint. It was fairly trau­matic. I did not win, but I remem­ber the inten­sity and how time slowed down. Every­thing became sur­real. Sec­onds seemed like hours. It reg­is­tered with me like some sort of bizarre dream. The trance broke imme­di­ately upon cross­ing the fin­ish line. It was exhil­a­rat­ing.
When you approach the fin­ish line, your focus nar­rows. Back­ground sounds fade. All you hear is your own heart­beat. I have crossed a num­ber of other fin­ish lines since then, but they have been aca­d­e­mic, per­sonal, and pro­fes­sional. It feels good to fin­ish. Each time you have the same feel­ing after it is over — wish­ing you could have tried harder. There is noth­ing like giv­ing it all you have. I have had some marathon exams. Hand­ing in a final paper is like fin­ish­ing a fifty mile run.
The Apos­tle Paul com­pared Chris­t­ian liv­ing to a race. He gave it all he had. His phrase, “I have fin­ished the race…” came not long before his exe­cu­tion. The world is bet­ter today because of his full efforts. The same is true for oth­ers that have lived with the same deter­mi­na­tion. Many oth­ers run secret races against time. Some are pit­ted against the uphill path to sci­en­tific break­throughs, oth­ers just want to live long enough to fin­ish rais­ing a child or grand­child.
After forty or fifty, you begin look­ing at the dis­tant hori­zon to see if you can see the fin­ish line. Is the unspec­i­fied anom­aly way up ahead just another chal­lenge, or is it the fin­ish line? Some­times you can sense it deep within. You find your­self detach­ing. Annoy­ances and pain are pushed aside by the psy­che, as it presses on to the soul’s des­tiny.
Today will have a fin­ish line, so will this week. The Fall semes­ter is over. The cal­en­dar year will end in about three weeks. Your per­sonal final fin­ish line will be…?
Give it your best shot!