pure motives

"But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your giving may be in secret.  Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you."  Matthew 6:3-4

What does this mean to us as Christian runners?  He is teaching that our motives for giving to God and others must be pure.  And that we are do to do His work expecting nothing in return.

As a runner, this is sometimes hard when God wants us to either slow down during a race to be a witness or an encourager or to, perhaps, run a race or distance we feel won't "look good" on our running resume or give us the bigger medal on our wall.  After all the time and effort training, we sometimes feel that we deserve to have that praise.  And, we certainly deserve to have that shiny medal!

But then, we come to the realization that we may not be running for Christ as we claim but for earthly praise and recognition exposing our pride and impure motives.  This attitude and the actions that follow are therefore, not of any benefit for spreading His love.  To be sure our motives are not selfish, we should our good deeds quietly with no thought of reward. That doesn't mean that we don't strive to be the best we can be, it means that in all we do, including the way we run our race, our actions should show that we are doing it for our true audience...God.  Let everything you do and say bring Him praise through the gift of running He has given you.