Thoughts from Mark "Hat" Rackley

Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one gets the prize? Run in such a way as to get the prize. Everyone who competes in the games goes into strict training. They do it to get a crown that will not last, but we do it to get a crown that will last forever.

• 1 Corinthians 9:24-25

My parents, whose photos are in the dictionary next to the definition of negative thinkers, would constantly tell me that I would never win unless I thought I could win.  If I start off by saying that I am outmatched, I would live down to my thinking and lose.

Have you ever noticed that self-fulfilling prophecies when you say you will win do not always happen, but if you have a self-fulfilling prophecy about losing, you are almost 100% safe with that prophecy.  I do not say 100% safe in that if everyone in the race felt like they would lose, not everyone can finish last.  In fact, someone will win the race in spite of themselves.

My wife told and retold a story about life aboard an ocean liner bound for the Netherlands.  She was not quite five years old, but she was very competitive, and they were stuck south of the Suez Canal.  The Arab-Israel War of 1956 had stalemated at the Suez Canal.  Their liner docked on the Egyptian side of the Red Sea.  They would not allow anyone through the Suez Canal in what became known as the Suez Crisis until there was a ceasefire.  But my wife, at five-years-old, only said that there were tanks on both sides of the canal and they did not like each other.  That was perceptive for a 5-year-old.

But she and her four brothers and her parents had just left Indonesia.  They would not swear allegiance to the new government and Islam, and the government told them they could get aboard the ocean liner and leave.  I am sure they were given alternatives that were not pleasant, but all my wife knew was that she got to go to Holland and stay with her cousins.

Note: She had four brothers and four sisters.  She was second oldest, but all four sisters were born after this point.  Her mother was pregnant with one sister, born in the Netherlands, and the other three sisters were born in the USA.

But aboard the ship, to keep the children from getting bored or scared, they played organized games.  My wife was captain of one of the teams and they had to run across the deck holding a balloon and then sit in a chair with the balloon under you until it popped.   With aggressive tenacity and a lot of cheering, my wife’s team was more than a full person ahead in the balloon popping until they reached the little rich girl.  She claimed to always lose every time she ever played anything.  My future wife was about to find out why.  The little rich girl ran halfway across to the awaiting chair.  She sat down on the deck.  And she cried.  She wanted her mommy.

Every time my wife retold that story, she had fire in her eyes.  The little rich girl could have walked instead of running and they would have won, but she quit!  The fire was still there when she told the story 60+ years later.  We can talk about not forgiving another day, but she was five!

What hurt was that the little rich girl prophesied their demise and it came true.

My wife had a bit of that kind of prophecy.  She was extremely ill and the doctors would not listen to all her symptoms.  She had a three-inch thick book of diseases on the bookshelf.  She thought of a couple of things her symptoms pointed to.  She would tell me that she was not a hypochondriac, because she really was sick.  She was only helping out the doctors.  But they never listened to her.  Strangely, she might have been right.

Another person of my acquaintance is on disability.  He was told that he might have narcolepsy.  When he worked, he would not get any sleep on Sunday night because he would have to go to work and face his evil boss on Monday morning.  But now, with disability, he does not have to do that.  But he was so conditioned to not get sleep on Sunday night that he got less than an hour of sleep that night.  Concerned that this might not ever get better, he got one hour of sleep Monday night.  I told him that I do not always get a good night’s sleep, but God gives me what I need.  Just do not worry about it.

He got very upset with me and I did not talk with him for a couple of days.  Both of those nights he got adequate sleep and he felt better.

We quote Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount about worry.  We know we are more valuable than two sparrows.  But then, we worry that God has better things to do, and we try to do it on our own.

And we fulfill the losing record for ourselves that we prophesied.

I worry.  If you asked my late wife, she would say that I do not worry.  I got tired of losing.  I got tired of sitting in the middle of a virtual ocean liner deck and crying, and I said, “God, this does not feel very good, but it is in your hands.  I mess up when I try to do it alone.  Please, take over.”

That prayer is hard to really match with your feeling down deep inside, but if you practice it more, that faith muscle can get stronger.

Soli Deo Gloria.  Only to God be the Glory.