Time and place.
What time did you run? What place did you get? As a middle-distance runner in high school and college these were two questions I could expect from well-meaning family and friends after most races. I looked forward to these time/place questions whenever I ran a PR or earned a medal. However, after a sub-par performance I dreaded those same questions and my mind would quickly go to work looking for some creative excuse.
As a senior year in high school, I once lost to my younger freshman brother in a cross-country race and the excuse I offered to my coach was - “A tree ran into me.” Hearing this feeble excuse, my coach barked back - “Well, clearly that tree was mentally better-prepared than you were today!”
The truth is that I was actually winning the race when I tried to save a few steps by ducking under a low-hanging branch on a tree that marked the far corner of the course. Unfortunately, what I hadn’t anticipated was that one step beyond that low-hanging 3 foot branch was another 4 foot branch that my 6 foot tall frame hit with full force. That attempted short-cut left me with a nasty bump on my head and a deep bruise on my ego. The bark of my coach (as well as that tree) provided me the blunt feedback I needed to perform better next time.
Time and place are two objective ways to measure our performance as runners. Times and places are completely objective; they provide the unambiguous, and at times, blunt feedback we need to perform our best. For many competitive runners the problem is when we allow our entire identity to be defined - positively or negatively - by our performance on a particular day. The truth is running is what we do - not who we are!
As a part-time college professor, I encounter students who anguish over what they will do after graduation; many are struggling to find their purpose in life. Their anguish is almost always rooted in confusion about who they are. The secular worldview of personal identity is rooted in the theory that humans are the mere biological by-products of random chance. If this secular worldview were true, then it would mean that humans have no greater value, or serve no higher purpose, than animals, plants, or any other life form. In recent years the celebration of gender dysphoria has only added to this confusion. If the fundamental question of our identity is up for debate, is it any wonder that many young people find themself struggling to find purpose in life?
By contrast, a Biblical worldview provides unambiguous answers to the questions of who we are and the purpose for which we are made. Genesis 1:27-28 is packed with the Divine Truth that each one of us is distinctively created in the image of a loving God and blessed by Him with what we need to thrive in His creation. Psalm 139 (verse 7-16) provides further insight by revealing that the souls we are given are imbued with incalculable value from the moment we are conceived. Even after our time in this world is complete we can not escape the God who gave us eternal souls.
Knowing that our Creator is all-knowing, all-loving, and all-powerful provides us the assurance that our identity is distinctive and has purpose during our limited time and place in this world. His Son Jesus summarizes our purpose succinctly in Matthew 22 when He instructs us to “…love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind” in verse 37 and to “...love your neighbor as yourself” in verse 39). Obedience to these commands begins each day when you identify yourself, and everyone you encounter, as eternal souls with immeasurable value.
Several weeks after my ill-fated shortcut attempt in that cross-country race, I ran into another kind of tree. At a Fellowship of Christian Athletes event, I learned that our souls could be protected for all time by following Jesus Christ who “died for us and was hung from a tree” (Acts 5:30). It is at this place - the Cross - where we find our true identity and purpose during the appointed time we are given in this place.
