Committed

I had lunch with a friend this past week, and he began telling me about a half marathon he wants to run next month. Much to my surprise, he began telling me about his training over the past several months. I was surprised because I had never heard him talk about the training. Really, you run?

“I don’t talk about it much,” he said. “People get over-focused on finishing time. My goal is to maintain my pace and finish the race. If I can push through the pain and exhaustion, and a bad knee, and finish the race, I don’t care about my time or my place.”

In the 8th grade, I joined the Boy Scouts with all of my best childhood friends. We had been in Cub Scouts together and this was a natural progression. We thought it would be fun.

But, quickly, we realized that while Cub Scouts was an after-school activity with our moms involved, Boy Scouts was a lot more serious and required a lot more commitment.

• Some of my friends dropped out pretty quickly because they thought wearing the uniform was silly – other friends would make fun of them or shun them for being in “Boy Scouts.”
• Some of my friends dropped out when they realized you actually had to attend meetings on Monday evenings, from 7-9 p.m., at the VFW clubhouse.
• Some of my friends dropped out when they realized you had to do something. You had to buy a Scout handbook and use it, and work on advancing toward being a better Boy Scout measured by rank (Tenderfoot, Second Class, First Class, Star, Life and Eagle) – and by leadership position, patrol leaders and assistants, quartermaster, librarian, or the chef crew.
• Some dropped out when they realized we went camping in the muggy summer heat and freezing mountain winter, and we couldn’t take the comforts of home, and we ate beans out of a can.
• Some dropped out because others dropped out. Without my friends involved, is this really a place for me to be involved?

Within two years, I was in Scouts without all my close friends. I was surrounded by new boys that I didn’t know that well.

I began looking for an exit strategy. I stopped attending meetings, I stopped working on my advancement, and that summer – I just announced that I was quitting. Well, not really quitting, but I figured I could easily just fade away and no one would really notice. After a while, my parents would stop making me to Scouts. After all, it was a 20-mile round trip drive to the scout meetings every Monday evening.

I had missed several weeks, and one summer evening I received a call from our scoutmaster, Mr. Dick DeWitt. Mr. DeWitt was a airline pilot and he talked to us like young men - not like little boys. He communicated respect and we respected him.

“Scott,” he said. “I want to talk to you about commitment.” Mr. DeWitt was a Delta pilot, and he was educated. He didn’t talk to me like a 15-year-old. He talked to me like the man he saw me becoming. “I know when a boy joins our troop if he will stick with it or if he will quit.  I know when a boy joins if he’s really got a spine up his back or if he’s just following a crowd in the door. All those boys who came with you, I expected every one of them to quit – but I did not expect it of you. I want you to be here next Monday night, at the meeting, and I want you to finish this race.”

I did stay in Scouts. I got my Eagle Scout award - Scout's highest honor. I was initiated into Scouting's Order of the Arrow. My Wolf Patrol dominated competitions in the troop and beyond. When I graduated high school, I was an junior assistant scoutmaster of the troop. Joe Thornton, whom I didn't really know when I joined scouts, became one of my closest high school friends and a great encourager. The rest of them became like brothers to me.

When I got my Eagle in December 1976, there was a reception after the ceremony at the local United Methodist Church. Mr. DeWitt pulled me off to the side, away from everyone and said, “If you commit to something, finish the race. Our world is full of quitters and people who want to lurk in the shadows – no commitment. Don’t be that person. And, don’t let those you love be those people.”

Mr. DeWitt was a Presbyterian. He didn’t reference 2 Timothy 4:7, but when I hear that verse, I often think of him. “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race. I have kept the faith.” Certainly, it speaks to my spiritual journey and finishing it well, but it also reminds me to be "all in" when I commit to join something or engage something.

In this passage of Scripture, Paul is coming to the end of his life and he’s writing to Timothy. He is saying, “I have been true to my calling – to preserve the gospel and make Jesus known.” Note that Paul does not say he won the race – just that he finished it. In v. 8, he speaks confidently than in finishing the race, “There is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord will give me (when I see Him).”

In the verses leading up to this popular Scripture verse, look at what else Paul tells Timothy:

• Preach the word. Make the gospel known. Each of us should be intentional about making the gospel known.
• Be persistent whether the time is favorable or unfavorable. Make the most of every opportunity.
• Correct, rebuke and encourage tempered with patience and (Scripture as your guide) . . . for (v. 3) people will accumulate teachers who tell them what they want to hear (not what they need to hear through Scripture) and they will turn their ears away from truth and truth aside to myths.
•  Keep your head in all situations. Endure suffering. Proclaim the gospel. Be involved in ministry until you die . . . v. 6 “for I am already being poured out.”

Here’s what I take from this – not as a Sunday School teacher, but as a single lone believer – I must be fully committed to the race and finish it. It’s not possible for me to approach faith half-heartedly or over-simplified or privately or seasonally. Scripture does not allow for a rest stop because I’m suddenly an empty-nester. Empty-nest may alter or slow my Christian Community involvement, but I am not excused from Jesus’ directive to make disciples. Life's circumstances do not excuse me from Jesus' direction to make disciples or the Holy Spirit's leading me to Christian Community.

My personal faith journey must guide everything else in my life – family, friends, workplace – everything. There is no room for me in the shadows of faith, including the Jesus’ church. Scripture, prayer, Christian Community, sharing the gospel – these continually mark the race that I must finish. And, you must finish it, too.