Cloud of Witnesses

Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us. (Hebrews 12:1 NIV)

I don't know if I've mentioned this before, but I tend to be a pretty competitive person. It's just in my nature. When I do things, I want to do them well. I don't really have a good middle ground here.

I don't necessarily see my competitive nature as a bad thing, because I know I am mostly competing against myself and my own self doubt. I've actually come to appreciate the scrappy grit that this competitive spirit has cultivated in me. Part of me thinks that I was built this way so I wouldn't just up and quit when things started getting hard--especially because I also seem to have been built to make things more difficult for myself than necessary.

Case in point:
Trying to run 13.1 miles just because. In Texas. In May. While simultaneously planning a move outside of the continental U.S. that's happening in less than 30 days. And while trying to get the kids through this school year that just.will.not.ever.end.

Or...

Trying to write a super-insightful blog once a week with my regularly-insightful brain.

I will tell you right now, friends. I would totally skip out on this week's entry except for the fact that I had to be all big and brave and make a public page---and then I had to be all cute and clever with my hashtags and make #TuesdayNEWsday be a thing---and so now I feel like people will notice and judge if I didn't post today.

And if they do judge me, then it will mean that I've come up short--which I have definitely already done a time or two before in this blogging business.
(Sometimes I worry if the fastest way to fail is to get a bunch of people to watch me.)

I don't want to be a quitter. I don't want to be a failure. And I'm tired of feeling like I'm crashing and burning in front of my "cloud of witnesses."


***

Only, here's the thing. I realized I might be confusing the job assignment of "my cloud."
God didn't surround us with a cloud of witnesses to point their fingers and laugh at us when we fall down, or to shame us when we come up short, or to put pressure on us when we're struggling.
That is what the Accuser does. Not the cloud.

I have a cloud of witnesses to root for me when I'm down. To encourage me when I'm tired. To celebrate wildly when I'm knocking it out of the park. To show up and cheer for me every leg of the race.
(And I've been blessed with a better "cloud" than I deserve.)


So here are the things from my regularly-insightful brain that I'm cheering over all of us today:

That we would be careful to listen for the cheers and not the jeers.
That we would race toward the prize and not against one another.
That we all run the race with perseverance ...where "scrappy grit" gets the job done just fine.