My Lesson from a Marathon Today

There is a half marathon this morning in my city, so some streets are closed. All of the closed streets make my normal route to church impossible, so I have a few choices:

1-Get up early enough to be able to drive to the area of my church and have breakfast and wait an hour to go to church. Problem? Get up early should be enough said.

2- Stay home and watch online. Problem- I teach a class first hour and go to worship second hour.

3- Drive out of my way to go around the marathon. This is what I will do even though it is inconvenient.

The building manager for my church and I were running through possibilities (pun intended) for future marathons for alternate routes such as close the interstate. We do things like this sometimes where I share ridiculous possibilities by him and he tells me-“Not going to happen.” It makes for fun banter.

Self is something that comes naturally to us all. We are all concerned with our self interests. That is appropriate at times such as working to provide for ourselves. But when it comes to our friendships in the church, Paul wrote in Philippians 2:

Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others.

Taking care of ourselves is okay and important. But seeking our own gain and wanting to have our own way in the church or in any friendship is not healthy. Looking to the interests of others does not come naturally to us, which is why we need the Holy Spirit working in us.

So even though I begrudgingly will drive out of my way this morning, the important thing is that I am in church to serve others. 🙂 lol

Thank you for reading. God Bless.