Girl, Get Your Groove On!Àpẹrẹ

If you’ve ever laid your head down dreading tomorrow, I get it. Maybe your to-do list is taller than your laundry pile, and both threaten to crush you before breakfast. You’re juggling roles—mom, wife, friend, daughter, maybe even CEO—and it feels like you’re failing all of them. You love Jesus, but lately, peace and purpose feel like luxuries you can’t afford. Somewhere along the way, your groove slipped out the back door. Now you’re just trying to make it through the day without falling apart.

What if there’s another way forward?

Paul likens our Christian lives to a race—not one marked by frantic striving, but by confident, purpose-filled endurance. He writes:

Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one receives the prize? So run that you may obtain it. —1 Corinthians 9:24 ESV

In Paul’s day, stadiums were as common place in Roman cities as fire stations and hospitals in our own. You’d be hard pressed to find anyone in the Roman Empire unfamiliar with racing. Everyone understood the metaphor, as we can today.

It means that even in our spiritual lives, we don’t sit on the sidelines. We participate in the race. Whether you feel more like a couch potato than a competitor doesn’t change the truth. If we have placed our faith in Jesus, we’ve been called to run. The spiritual race isn’t reserved for the most impressive or the best put-together. It’s for anyone willing to step onto the track.

This is good news. You may see yourself as the girl who never made the team, the one who can’t keep up, or the woman who never gets it together. Perhaps you’ve grown content as a spectator. But your God-given place is not in the stands. You are in the race.

This imagery shouldn’t surprise us. Jeremiah reminds us to pursue God with all our heart (Jeremiah 29:3), not with perfection but with purpose. And Colossians 1:29 echoes this call to give our all with His strength fueling every step. Paul’s sporting analogy simply offers a relatable framework in which these elements align.

The first step in getting our groove back on, is to begin seeing ourselves as runners who run.

Prayer

Lord Jesus, help me see myself as a runner in the race of faith. Give me the strength and courage to live with purpose for Your glory. Amen.