As an athlete, I have always seemed to have a goal in mind. When I was younger, it was moving up the ranks as a goalie so I could play hockey in college. This kept me working throughout high school, training and eating right so that I would be healthy enough to attain my goal.
When I was through hockey, and I had nothing to shoot for, I stopped training. I stopped eating right. Then my goals were work and helping to provide for my family. I went back to school and my goal was to graduate so that God could use me in ministry. I achieved that initial goal, but realized that this would be a lifetime goal, and I have sought to continue to learn, even going on in school so that I could be more useful. But I let my health go.
The call to make my health a priority…
About 10 years ago I tried to get healthy, but it wasn’t until I started racing triathlon that I was able to make my health a priority. I would have a race, and I would need to train in order to reach this new goal of crossing the finish line.
There is a saying that if you aim at nothing, you will hit it every time. As humans, we need goals to keep us focused. I continue to race, because having a goal keeps me training and helps me to make my health a priority when there are so many other things vying for my attention.
Making our spiritual health a priority…
I believe that we see the same principle in our spiritual lives. If we don’t have spiritual goals, we won’t hit them either. Whether it’s reading through the Bible in a year (or two years), spending quality time alone with God, or spending time with the spiritual disciplines – if we don’t plan, we won’t do.
And similar to our goals in athletics, or our goals in work, or our goals in school, we need to have spiritual goals, and I think we also need to have the end goal in sight. Our goal is to win the spiritual race… it is to attain heaven.
Jesus has done all of the heavy lifting here. He lived the sinless life we can’t. He died on the cross as the payment for our sins. He rose again, showing that His payment is sufficient.
Our responsibility? Seek to love Him with all of our heart, soul, mind, and strength (the first and greatest commandment – Luke 10:27). We see in Philippians that we are called to run the spiritual race with our eye on the prize.
“Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already arrived at my goal, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.” Phi. 3:12-14 NIV
It is easy to fall behind in our spiritual responsibilities if we take our eyes off the prize, but when we know what our goal is (heaven), and who we are running the race for (Jesus), it is much easier to stay on track and not get distracted.
Along the Multicolored Road 
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