At the close of the previous blog entry, I made the controversial statement that running your race will require more than will-power; it will require faith in supernatural assistance. This is a sticking place for many of us. Either we like to think we are independent and capable of standing on our own two feet, no matter what life throws at us – and therefore we don’t need religion, or we tell ourselves that we accept religion up to a point but the supernatural piece is more than we can swallow. People who have been “educated” to rely entirely on logic and scientific explanations are especially resistant to the idea of supernatural assistance.
But somewhere in the running of our individual races, most of us eventually realize that the supernatural piece is not negotiable, and putting our faith in it is really the only option if we are to have peace in our hearts, if we are to see our place and realize that we are not God.
Hebrews 12:2 continues the thought of 12:1, advising that the way we are to accomplish the running of our race is to look to Jesus, “the author and finisher of our faith.” Even faith, then, which we might have assumed was our responsibility, our side of the relationship, is not left to us alone but comes to us through supernatural assistance: begun in us and completed in us by Divine Spirit.
