Maranatha Marathon

Genesis 47:7-10
Then Joseph brought in his father Jacob and set him before Pharaoh; and Jacob blessed Pharaoh. Pharaoh said to Jacob, “How old are you?” And Jacob said to Pharaoh, “The days of the years of my pilgrimage are one hundred and thirty years; few and evil have been the days of the years of my life, and they have not attained to the days of the years of the life of my fathers in the days of their pilgrimage.” So Jacob blessed Pharaoh, and went out from before Pharaoh.

Spending time reading the Bible this morning, I came across the above passage in Genesis, and was struck by Jacob's answer to Pharaoh's question. After being confronted with another delay in transportation, I was frustrated, but recognized that God's plan was not upset by a cancelled flight. Later this morning , I was talking with CH Gregory, who is the Family Life Chaplain at Bagram Airfield (BAF), about life being a marathon and that all the experiences and circumstances that we encounter are designed to draw us closer to God over the course of our lives. Jacob described his entire life as a pilgrimage. Wikipedia describes a pilgrimage in this way: "In religion and spirituality, a pilgrimage is a long journey or search of great moral significance."

All of us are on a pilgrimage to find meaning in life. Praise God that He has shown us the ultimate meaning to life!

Psalm 34:8-9,22
Taste and see that the LORD is good; blessed is the man who takes refuge in him. Fear the LORD, you his saints, for those who fear him lack nothing. The LORD redeems his servants; no one will be condemned who takes refuge in him.

If you have not yet found the meaning of life, taste and see that the LORD is good! If you have begun the journey of a life in Christ, it is not over! It is a marathon, and you can only complete the race when you run with Jesus.

Philippians 1:6
Being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.

Philippians 3:12-14
Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers, 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.

P.S. Maranatha really has nothing to do with the above thought, but I remembered it from when I was a kid listening to my parent's Christian albums. If you have never heard this phrase, I copied the definition below from Wikipedia.

Maranatha (either מרנא תא; maranâ' thâ' or מרן אתא; maran 'athâ' ) is an Aramaic phrase transliterated into Greek. It is found at the end of Paul's First Epistle to the Corinthians (1 Cor 16:22). As understood here ("O Lord, come!"), it is a prayer for the early return of Christ. If the Aramaic words are divided differently (Maran atha, "Our Lord has come"), it becomes a credal declaration. The former interpretation is supported by what appears to be a Greek equivalent of this acclamation in Rev 22:20 "Amen. Come, Lord Jesus!"