Finishing Well

 

The 2026 Winter Olympics have officially come to an end after seventeen days of athletic competition across sixteen different sports disciplines – with a total of 116 events. Wow! No wonder I’m kind-of burned out and ready to do something else with my evenings for a while! But even though I was never an athlete, I do enjoy watching these participants competing at such a high level; and I am always amazed at what they are able to accomplish. There were many stunning victories and a few unexpected defeats. Many of the athletes had both high moments and disappointing ones. 

Watching the Olympics always reminds me of what the Christian walk is like. Sometimes we too have stunning victories, and sometimes we also have unexpected defeats. We can find ourselves losing our focus sometimes, bringing disappointing results. And other times we are able to see God working through us to accomplish things we could never do on our own. There are many times when the Bible refers to the Christian life as a race, encouraging us to finish well. 

My family always chuckles when we hear those words, because my husband spoke them often to our sons before they left home for good. We never expected either of them to be the best at whatever they did, but we did expect them to always do their best. So my husband would remind them to “finish well” in whatever endeavor they were pursuing. 

There are lots of things outside ourselves that can affect our pursuit to finish well in the Christian walk. In fact, Satan’s main agenda is to keep us from finishing well so that God’s kingdom is negatively affected. Just like the athletes in the Olympics, we cannot lose our focus or get distracted by the things that happen to us in this life if we expect to finish well. This is the reminder that the writer of Hebrews gives us in chapter 12, verses 1 and 2: 

“. . . let us strip off every weight that slows us down, especially the sin that so easily trips us up. And let us run with endurance the race God has set before us. We do this by keeping our eyes on Jesus, the champion who initiates and perfects our faith.” 

You see, Jesus has already run the race before us; and he has already won. So keeping our focus on him and choosing to avoid anything that slows us down is the only way to finish the race well. And the next verse after this says that fixing our eyes on Jesus is what will keep us from becoming weary or from losing heart while we run the race. These words are encouraging to me and give me the hope that I need to finish well.

Near the end of his life, the apostle Paul was able to write these words to a young man he was mentoring: “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith” (2 Timothy 4:7). May the same be able to be said of you and me at the end of our lives because we finished well!

We Did It!

Yesterday was a big day for just about everyone in the area where I live. After eleven long years, our local professional football team returned to the Super Bowl to play for what is referred to as the “world championship” of that sport. And we won! 

I’m not a die-hard sports fan, but I do enjoy watching a good football game when our team is playing well. My personal team experience is limited, as I never played sports or competed in any other scenarios on a team. My only team experience was many years of serving as a member of our church worship team, which is different than the team sports experience. 

I’ve also been starting to watch the Olympics that are currently taking place in Italy, where most of the competitions involve individuals rather than teams. But what I’ve heard repeated by numerous members of the Seahawks football team over the past couple weeks is the idea of teamwork; and it seems that this team has a special connection with each other. Nearly every member of the team that reporters have spoken to has referred to the brotherhood that exists on this team, and it is evident in how they play and how they speak about each other. There truly doesn’t seem to be any “I” in this team. 

There also doesn’t seem to be any separation based on color on this team. That’s probably because many of the players as well as the head coach often mention God and their personal relationships with him. I believe this has had a unifying effect on this team that is not always seen on other teams. 

Our church is located in the fifth most ethnically diverse city in the whole United States, and we are making a conscious effort to become a church that welcomes people of all races. Only the Spirit of God can knit all people groups together into one body of believers who aren’t focused on differences but rather on shared beliefs and common goals. So it is refreshing to see such camaraderie on a secular football team. 

And it challenges all of us to approach those around us who are different with the same acceptance and team attitude that our football team displays. Imagine all we could accomplish for God’s kingdom if we could get that right! 

Broken Vessels

It’s not the first time it’s happened, and I’m sure it won’t be the last. I was packing up the last remnants of the Christmas season when the ornament slipped out of my hand and broke in dozens of pieces on the floor. I was already reminiscing about each of the ornaments as I took them off the tree, since most of our ornaments have sentimental value for one reason or another. But now this memory would be gone forever.

Early in our son’s marriage, my new daughter-in-law and I went to a local Christmas bazaar featuring many handmade crafts and gifts. It was a fun day together, and she bought me the hand-painted ornament that now lay on the floor in pieces. She knew how much I loved pansies and gave it to me as a Christmas gift a few weeks later. I am sad to no longer have this reminder of a good memory.          

But as I cleaned up the broken mess on the floor, I couldn’t help but think about some verses in the Bible that talk about brokenness and the fragile nature of each of our lives. I used to think that only other people were broken; I have discovered in the last twenty years that everyone is broken in some way . . . even me. Thankfully, we are reminded in the Psalms that God is near to the brokenhearted (Psalm 34:18) and that he heals them and binds up their wounds (Psalm 147:3). We also discover that God most desires those who come to him with a broken spirit and a broken and contrite heart (Psalm 51:17). 

Amazingly, it is this willingness to be broken that makes us the most useful for God’s kingdom and purposes. That’s because God can turn brokenness into something even better that can be used for ministry for him. Jeremiah 18:4 tells us about a field trip that God took Jeremiah on in order to teach him how to prophesy to the nation of Israel. He went to visit a potter and witnessed this: “And the vessel he was making of clay was spoiled in the potter’s hand, and he reworked it into another vessel, as it seemed good to the potter to do.” 

God still uses broken or “spoiled” vessels by reworking them into something new that is useful for his purposes. We don’t want to be broken because we don’t always understand what’s best. But God does. And when he looks at us in our “fragile jars of clay”, he sees vessels that can be reworked by him to carry the “treasure” of the gospel message to those around us (2 Corinthians 4:7). This verse goes on to remind us that God’s work through our brokenness is what will bring the glory to him and not to us. 

I can’t bring back the beautiful ornament that was broken. But I can embrace my own brokenness by allowing God to use me “just as I am” to minister to the lives of others “as it seems good to the potter to do”. I’ll always be amazed that this is God’s plan, and I’ll always be humbled to be a part of it. May you and I be faithful whenever he calls.