I therefore, the prisoner in the Lord, beg you to lead a life worthy of the calling to which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, making every effort to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to the one hope of your calling, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is above all and through all and in all. But each of us was given grace according to the measure of Christ’s gift. Therefore, it is said, ‘When he ascended on high, he made captivity itself a captive; he gave gifts to his people.’ (When it says, ‘He ascended’, what does it mean but that he had also descended into the lower parts of the earth? He who descended is the same one who ascended far above all the heavens, so that he might fill all things.)
Reflection
I am not a huge fan of The Message translation of the Bible, but every now and again, a passage is translated in such a way that it makes you stop and think – oh that’s what that means. So that’s what I did with this excerpt from Ephesians, and the bit that truly stood out to me was this, “While I’m locked up here, a prisoner for the Master, I want you to get out there and walk—better yet, run!—on the road God called you to travel.”
I love to run, but on a treadmill! Yes, I know, but I put my TV show on my phone, my headphones on and I can run for a long time. In 2019 I was training to run marathons so that I could fulfil my lifelong dream of running an ultra-marathon in 2020! Unfortunately, things didn’t go as planned and I didn’t qualify for said ultra-marathon and then well, 2020 happened, so it didn’t really matter…
But running the race of Christ-following is equally as tough – marathon training takes up so much time, and as much as it can be an individual endeavour, it’s so much better when you are part of a running club and can chat with people on the road, people who are generally on the same journey as you.
There is definitely not “sitting on hands” when training, because it is that arm-pumping motion that keeps you going forward – and if you happen to go down a stray path, well, you may just twist your ankle and then your dreams may be over for a time.
Paul tells us we are “called to travel on the same road and in the same direction, so stay together, both outwardly and inwardly” how much better to be on the road together, “with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love” and keeping peace – this sounds like the correct training to reach that final destination. So perhaps running and following Christ are not so different – they both require time and effort and when someone else is travelling that path with you, it just makes life so much better, and enables to maintain the one body and bond of unity too.
Prayer
Lord, thank you for calling us to travel on your road – sometimes we wander off the path on to a stray path and things don’t always go as planned; sometimes we fail to train with those around us and become discouraged and so give up. But thank you for the people who travel with us – encouraging and enabling us to stay the course and so therefore reach our goal in you. Amen.
