Your success in life's race depends on your reason for running. One of Aesop's fables tells of a dog that chased a hare. The hound chased the hare over many miles. Finally, the hound gave up in exhaustion. Seeing the race, a bystander praised the hero-hare. He mocked the loser. Indignantly the hound replied, "You forget that it is one thing to run for your dinner and another to run for your life."
Many people are "running for their dinner." They are pursuing just one more job to pay the bills. Their highest goal is to provide for the body's needs and pleasures. "'Let us eat and drink,' you say, 'for tomorrow we die!'" While this quote sounds like a beer commercial, it actually comes from the Old Testament prophet Isaiah (22:13). He is describing a pervasive view of life in both his day and our own. As many discover the hard way, this worn out view of life is empty and meaningless. Our bodies will fail and fail far too soon. "You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes" (James 4:14). What business-person would invest in a market he knows to be rapidly and finally declining? Yet that same shrewd investor forgets the greatest truth about profit and loss. "What good will it be for a man if he gains the whole world, yet forfeits his soul?" (Matthew 16:26).
The fact that you are still with me this far suggests you want to make a life, not just a living. Jesus encourages you in your search when he advises, "Do not work for food that spoils, but for food that endures to eternal life" (John 6:27). Don't run for your dinner, run for your life!
Those who don't know God's will chase material things for 'living.' We should aim much higher, seeking the Life-Giver Himself! We seek "His kingdom," His reign over us and in us and his His will for us. This is "doing the will of God from the heart" (Ephesians 6:6). Like Jesus, the Father's will becomes our food. This is the true "health food," for its benefit endures far beyond the grave. "The world and its desires pass away, but the man who does the will of God lives forever" (1 John 2:17).
But it does not have to be the rat-race, a frantic "running for dinner." That kind of contest ends in exhaustion and emptiness. How much better to "run for your life!" You can recognize the real stakes and run to win. Of course, even that race must end. Yet - like Aesop's winner - our run ends, not in death, but in eternal life. The Father welcomes us with the greatest prize of all, never ending life with Him! You will say with the victorious Paul, "I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Now there is in store for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will award to me on that day - and not only to me, but also to all who have longed for His appearing (2 Timothy 4:7-8).
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This page Copyright © 2001 Michael A. Tichenor
Last Revised: Sunday, April 29, 2001