Mentoring

"Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us..." Hebrews 12:1

Good morning, dear friends!

This must be my year for trying new things.

This week I made the decision to get back into jogging on a regular basis.  As I have mentioned here before, I like jogging, am not really that great with it, so I decided to get more regular in my training.  I found a program: Couch to 5K.  I downloaded the app (which is really helpful, and I'm not really an app person).  I announced my decision on Facebook (because where else do we announce life changing decisions any more?)

One last step...I found a mentor.

Webster's Dictionary defines a mentor as a person who "teaches or gives help and advice to a less experienced person." I wanted someone who had gone through the program recently, is still doing it today, and can encourage me to stick with it until I reach my goals.  The Lord led me to just the right person, and I'm so glad He did.  She is sweet, funny, encouraging, and uplifting.  She has good advice and I believe will hold me accountable until I am finished.

There is just something about having personal accountability to someone, isn't there?  We are not called to please men, but sometimes we just need that encouragement from someone else to help us stick to our goals. We need someone in whose footsteps we can follow, who will cheer us on through difficulties and trials, and in whose experience we can trust because they have stayed the course and accomplished the task that we ourselves are trying to complete.

I'm so thankful that the verse at the top of this blog is included in God's Word.  As I run God's race here on earth, I have the examples of a multitude of men and women who are now in heaven, and their testimonies are shining beacons to encourage me to stay faithful to the Lord.

These are men and women like me, who struggled in their personal faithfulness, with feet of clay, with good intentions but sometimes less than stellar follow-through.  Others fell away for a time, only to be redeemed and set back on the path of faithful service to the Lord.  During their lives, each story is God's story, how God could take an imperfect person, pour His Son's likeness into him, and allow that light to shine brightly in the darkness around them.

My mentor in my jogging endeavors will offer me counsel about running that is borne of experience and effort.  She knows the pitfalls, the weights, the obstacles toward achieving my goals.  She can help me avoid some of the same problem areas and struggles that maybe she faced while training.  I would be foolish to push her help away, thinking that I knew better than someone who has already gone before me.

I would also be foolish, in a spiritual sense, to ignore the lessons learned by the "heroes of the faith" mentioned in Hebrews 11, who "died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off, and were persuaded of them, and embraced them, and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth." (Hebrews 11:13)

I would also be wise to take heed to the negative examples of those who lived selfishly and short-sided during their time on earth.  God reminds me that their stories are there to teach me: "Now all these things happened unto them for ensamples: and they were written for our admonition..." (I Corinthians 10:11).  I should learn from the mistakes of others and not repeat them.

May I be careful each day to listen to the stories of the faithful saints in God's Word, heed their warnings, examine their faithfulness, and follow in their footsteps, each step taking me closer to Jesus's likeness, and my heavenly home.  May I be the Christian today who mentors others in steadfastness, encouraging others to run their races faithfully in the Lord  as well.

May my feet hit the ground running for the Lord today.