"Now Run Yours"

The movie "Secretariat" was Altha’s and my favorite movie of the year. It chronicles the stunning journey of the 1973 Triple Crown winner. Secretariat’s owner Penny Tweedy, a suburban housewife and mother from Colorado, takes over her ailing father's horse breeding ranch in Virginia and, without experience, turns outs a champion horse.

Against the backdrop of horse racing, this Disney film “Secretariat” provides a metaphoric, awe-inspiring portrait of aspiration and endurance each of us needs in order to run his race. At a particularly desperate and challenging time in her own life, the feisty Penny says "You never know how far you can go unless you run.” And on the night before Secretariat’s final Triple Crown competition, Penny realizes that she has accomplished what she set out to do (produce a champion horse). Aware that she has finished her race, she says to Secretariat: “I have run my race; now run yours.” The next day, to the delight of fans and surprise of critics, the spirited horse won the race in record time, and by 31 lengths.

The Movie’s (admittedly cliché) moral is this: each of us has been designed by God to run his race. The ‘racing’ theme is a fitting one for us. After years of walking with God, Paul wrote, “Do you not know that those who run in a race all run, but only one receives the prize? Run in such a way that you may win.” And then of himself, Paul says “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith” (1 Cor. 9:24; 1 Tim. 4:7). Now run yours.