Finish the race. Complete the task.

ACTS 20:24 I consider my life worth nothing to me, if only I may finish the race and complete the task the Lord Jesus has given me--the task of testifying to the gospel of God's grace.
    
     Paul is saying good-bye to the Ephesian church after having been ministering to them for three years. His purpose, his goal is quite clear. Finish the race. Complete the task.
     Everyone one of us has a race to run and a task to complete. Both given and ordained by God. In the course of life we may run many mini-races with God or perform many small tasks for God but we also have the race that does not end until we see Christ and the task that is never finished but passed on to someone else.
     Big or small, finish the race. Complete the task.
     I look at the task of raising my kids. A God-ordained task if there ever was one. It was not the easiest of tasks but I look at my kids today and I can say the task has been completed. They have a lot of growing to do but it is no longer my task to raise them. Now I get to run the race alongside of them.
     I look at the task of being a Pastor. Planted our church in 1997 and more than once I thought our time was done, the task complete and ready to move onto another place of ministry. But God continues to give me new tasks in the same place. In some ways, I am running this race in place. And what a race it is as God continues to make it exciting and new despite coming close to 15 years here.
     I wonder what it would have been like in those very dark moments if I had chosen to not finish the task: The Sundays when it was just my family and I and the kids asking if I had to preach. The days as I cut my teeth in ministry I inadvertently bit some of the very flock I am called to shepherd. The times when the money was low and I was even lower. I could have quit before the task was done and no one would have blamed me. Yet I did not, thanks to the strength of a very wise wife and the patience of a very wise God.
    If I quit the task too early I would never have seen the blessing of those who have come to know Christ as Savior. I would not have seen God move in miraculous ways in regards to buildings and facilities. I would not have grown as a preacher, a man, a husband and father.
     I have come to the conclusion that any task God gives us, he equips us with what is needed to finish the task. Or at least our part of the task. There will come a day I leave this church. It may be feet first, it may not be. But I hope I can say I have been faithful to the task that God has given me.
     Paul would use the race metaphor more than once in his teaching and ministry. He uses it last in his famous passage in 2 Timothy 4:6-7 For I am already being poured out like a drink offering and the time has come for my departure. I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race.
     By all accounts I have years of ministry for God ahead of me. So do many of you reading this blog.  There will be formal ministry tasks to finish and life tasks to complete. Paul's good-bye to the Ephesians gave seed to his good-bye to Timothy and us all. In Acts he hopes to run the race and complete the task God has set before him. In Timothy he can look back with assurance that he has done just that.
    O Lord, my God, help us to finish the race and complete the task. Amen.