This weekend, I had the privilege to join my track team as we spent two days in Winston-Salem, NC at the JDL Fast Track, featuring the Camel City Elite races on Saturday. It is a great meet with a vibrant atmosphere.
Friday afternoon, there was a meet and greet opportunity to connect with a slew of professional runners. Everyone had a lot of fun as we met runners from the Brooks Beast Track Club, an incredible group of world class hurdlers (Brianna Rollins, Lolo Jones, David Oliver, Jason Richardson), Asics (Heather Kampf), and Nike athletes like Shannon Rowbury, Ashton Eaton & Matthew Centrowitz, and others!
As I finally laid down on Friday night, I realized this human desire in us to connect. Not just to connect, but to really be seen and known. Everyone wanted to be known by these athletes who were the best in the world.
We all wanted a picture or an autograph of these athlete celebrities, not just for our own intrinsic enjoyment, but we can then be seen and known by other people. Why else to we post, post, and post on social media? The faster, more impressive, more popular the athlete… the greater our desire to be connected.
This reveals our greater longing to know and be known by something so much greater than ourselves. God himself is the greatest, most impressive, and most famous being there ever was.
We all go searching for a quicker and seemingly easier solution in connecting with celebrities and even friends and family, rather than seeking a relationship with the Lord who meets all desires for connection.
Lord, I pray that our desire to connect with you would be greater than any other desire for connection. Let it not be about our recognition or status, but yours. You have made us wonderfully and fearfully, but you are the potter and we are just the clay. How much greater you are as a the potter. Thank you that you give us the understanding to know you.
“He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end.” – Ecclesiastes 3:11