When I was at school, I had a loathing of athletics. The summer term was always a nightmare for me: heavy-eyed from hay fever, I would have to tackle each of the main athletics’ events and discover I had an aptitude for none of them. Sprinting and long-distance running left me panting… and last. Throwing items (discus, javelin and shot put) left me humiliated as my ability to hurl things in the distance made ‘distance’ a risible term. Long jump with short legs was a farce; high jump with short legs was even more of a tribulation.
But by far the worst event for me was the hurdles. Long-legged, tall, willowy girls raced over these with effortless ease: one, two, three, jump; one, two, three, jump. To me, those hurdles were very nearly as high as the high jump bar. I couldn’t get into any rhythm of striding and then had to surmount the hurdle – which to me was more like a mountain. Years later, when I watched Jessica Ennis at the 2012 Olympics, I was filled with awe at the grace, strength and power she displayed in the 100 m hurdles, breaking the world record in a time of 12.54 seconds. I knew I couldn’t even glide over one hurdle, let alone complete a race!
Hurdles, to many, are simply inconvenient ‘blips’, an added challenge to a race they enjoy. To me, for whom running is about as enjoyable as sticking pins into my flesh anyway, hurdles are a thing which make me want to lie down and cry. Whoever thought of combining the two things was a merciless sadist, as far as I’m concerned.
And yet, with the benefit of wisdom, I see that hurdles are a metaphor for life. The Bible likens life to a race (Heb 12:1-3, 1 Cor 9:24-27) and reminds us that there are challenges and obstacles to be overcome (Jn 16:33, James 1:1-3). We often wonder why God doesn’t simply remove the trials, but He is interested in developing perseverance and character in us which are only forged through the difficulties.
When Jesus’s friend Lazarus was ill, his sisters notified Jesus immediately (Jn 11:1-3). Jesus declared, ‘This sickness will not end in death. No, it is for God’s glory, so that God’s Son may be glorified through it.’ (Jn 11:4) The Bible is explicit in telling us of Jesus’s love for this family (Jn 11:5)… and yet He stayed where He was for another two days, and Lazarus died in the meantime. (Jn 11:6-16).
We know from the rest of the chapter how the story ends – with the great miracle of Lazarus’s resuscitation from the dead and a demonstration of Jesus’s great power over death. ‘All’s well that ends well‘, we might think. But at the time, both Martha and Mary were devastated at that delay. Hadn’t they called on Jesus for help? They knew if Jesus had been there, their brother would not have died (Jn 11:21,32), so they had to face the hurdle of confusion, uncertainty, maybe even doubt and resentment.
Jesus doesn’t always do what we want Him to do when we want Him to do it. And if we are honest, that is a hurdle every bit as high as a high jump bar. But Jn 11 teaches us that God’s glory surmounts the highest hurdle life can throw at us and in order to see God’s glory, we may well have to hold on through many obstacles and hurdles which leave us in confusion, uncertainty, doubt, resentment and bitterness.
I never learnt to soar above hurdles. I’ve clattered through more, grazing knees, bruising legs, than I care to remember, and in doing so have never won a hurdles’ race in my life. But I learnt that finishing still earned my team points and that there was no rule which said it didn’t count if I knocked the hurdle down. We may not soar over the hurdles and finish in record-breaking times, but as we learn to trust God through His ‘delays’ and ‘mistimings’, as we learn to trust Him when things don’t go the way we expected (‘when my life is not what I expected, when the plans I’ve made have failed’, as Kutless sing), we find ourselves on the other side of the hurdles and God’s glory shines through.