Stop Walking. Start Running.

I am out East right now visiting my wife's family. South of D.C. in northern Virginia and I want to be clear about something before I say anything else: I love it here. Every single time we make this trip, I am reminded how incredibly important family is. Tanja's family has always made me feel like I've always been a part of the family. We have only been here a couple of days this trip and we have most of the week still ahead of us, and honestly, it's already going by too quickly.

Our girls absolutely love being here, and watching that warms my heart in a way that is hard to put into words. My father-in-law is someone I respect and trust immensely. His wisdom has helped guide me on several occasions. Her stepmother loves and supports our family without condition. Her mother is one of those people where when she hugs you, you actually feel it. You feel the love transferring. You walk away from time with her feeling better than when you arrived. And her grandmother, who is getting older but doing remarkably well, has been such a joy to spend time with.

So I say all of that first because what I am about to say next is not about them.

It is about the world just outside their door. Because out here in public, the pace is something else entirely. Traffic is a contact sport. Lane changes happen without warning or apology. In the grocery store, in the parking lot, in the drive-through, there is this low-grade tension sitting just underneath the surface of everything, like the whole place is one slow driver away from a full breakdown. People are rushing. People are cutting each other off. People are buried in their phones while standing in line, completely distracted from the person right in front of them. There is urgency everywhere, and almost none of it is pointed at anything that will matter in ten years. It shocks me every time we come out here, even though by now it probably shouldn't.

And I have been sitting with this the last couple of days, watching it, and thinking: this is actually a pretty accurate picture of how most of us live our faith.

We are busy. We are moving. We are exhausted. But we are not running after the right thing. We have borrowed the pace of the world and applied it to everything except the one pursuit that actually deserves our full, relentless, sprint-everything-you-have effort.

In Philippians 3, Paul uses language that should make us uncomfortable. He says he has not already reached the goal or already become perfect, but he presses on to take hold of what Christ took hold of him for. Then he says this: "Forgetting what is behind and reaching forward to what is ahead, I pursue as my goal the prize promised by God's heavenly call in Christ Jesus." The word he uses is not frolic. It is not stroll. It carries the full weight of a man chasing something like his life depends on it, because he understood that it does.

Paul was not writing that from a comfortable chair. He wrote it from prison. And still, his posture was forward. Still, his language was pursuit. Full, relentless, everything-on-the-table pursuit of Christ.

Here is the question nobody wants to answer honestly: when is the last time you actually pressed toward Jesus? Not showed up for Jesus. Not checked a box for Jesus. Actually pressed. Actually ran. Actually felt the burn in your chest from chasing something hard?

Most of us have settled. And we have dressed the settlement up in spiritual language so it sounds okay. "I'm just in a season." "I'm taking it slow." "I don't want to be one of those people who is too intense about their faith." We have made peace with mediocrity and called it balance, and I think it grieves the heart of God in ways we do not fully understand.

Jesus did not die a mediocre death so you could live a mediocre faith.

In Hebrews 12, we are told to run with endurance the race that is set before us, with our eyes fixed on Jesus. Fixed. Not glancing at Him occasionally between distractions. Not checking in on Sundays and then ignoring Him the rest of the week. Fixed. That is the posture of someone who has decided that nothing else gets the first look. Nothing else gets the prime real estate of their attention and energy and time.

The honest truth is that most of us run hard after everything except Jesus. We run after career advancement. We run after financial security. We run after the approval of people who will not even remember our names in fifty years. I watched a man out here nearly lose his composure because someone took the parking spot he had his eye on. And I do not say that to mock him, because I understood it, because I have done the same thing in different forms. We have more urgency for the small inconveniences of daily life than we do for the God who made us, saved us, and is coming back for us.

That should bother you. It bothers me.

I am not pointing fingers from a distance. I have sat in the comfort of an easy faith more times than I want to admit. I have coasted. I have shown up without really showing up. I have given God the version of me that was left over after everything else got its piece. And every single time, I walked away feeling empty, wondering why my faith felt stale, wondering where the fire went. The answer was always the same. I had stopped running.

Here is what I have learned: the fire does not come to people who are waiting on it. The fire comes to people who are running toward it.

The disciples did not wait for Pentecost by sitting around playing it safe. They were in the upper room together, praying, seeking, desperate for what Jesus had promised. And when the Spirit came, it came on people who were already leaning in. Already postured toward God. Already in full expectation and pursuit. That is what pursuit does. It puts you in position for encounter.

And I want to be clear about something. This is not about striving in your own strength until you burn out. This is not about adding more to an already full schedule and grinding harder for God's attention. God's love is not something you earn by outrunning everyone else. His grace is not the prize at the end of a performance-based race. You run because you are loved, not to be loved. You pursue because He first pursued you, all the way to a cross, and that kind of love deserves every ounce of response you have.

Jesus said in Matthew 11:12 that the kingdom of heaven has been subjected to violence, and the violent have been seizing it. That is not a comfortable verse. It does not fit neatly on a coffee mug. But it is the language of intensity. The language of people who have counted the cost, looked at what is at stake, and decided they are not going to approach their faith like a leisure activity.

What strikes me most about being here is the contrast. Inside the walls of this family, there is warmth, there is presence, there is genuine love being passed from one person to the next. And then you walk out into the world and it is every person for themselves. Nobody is really seeing each other. Nobody is really connecting. Everybody is in a hurry and nobody knows why.

The hustle of this world produces exhaustion. The pursuit of Jesus produces life.

You were made for more than a casual relationship with the living God.

So I want to ask you directly, the same way I have had to ask myself: what would it look like for you to actually sprint? Not to be perfect. Not to have it all figured out. But to bring the full weight of your want toward Jesus, starting today. What if you woke up tomorrow and treated your pursuit of Christ with the same urgency you give to the things you actually care about deeply?

I think you would be shocked what God does with that kind of hunger.

Stop jogging. Stop strolling. Stop giving the world your sprint and giving Jesus whatever is left.

He is worth it. And somewhere deep down, you already know it.