Run to Finish Strong

By Sipho Mzolo

This book is most notable as a portrait of what God-inspired willpower can do for a young person. It instructs you never give up your race nobody is going to finish this damn thing for you.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Sipho Mzolo
• Release date: Nov 16, 2015
• ISBN: 9781311472137

Sipho Mzolo

My brand story: ‘I do the work I do because I choose to inhabit my days, to allow my living to open me to be more accessible, to loosen my heart until it becomes a torch. I chose to risk my significance to live so that that which came to me as a blossom goes on as a fruit. Its about kindling hope for others that’s the difference he is to others lives.’ Father to Kgaugelo, Sigra, Musa and Saroyah.

Book preview

RUN TO FINISH STRONG

SIPHO MZOLO

Copyright @2016 Sipho Mzolo. The moral right of Sipho Mzolo to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted. Cover design by Unsplash

CONTENTS

Works by same author

Preface

Chapter 1 - Preparation

Chapter 2 - Choices

Chapter 3 - Risks

Chapter 4 – Living to the full

Chapter 5 – The finish line

Endnotes

WORKS BY SAME AUTHOR

Fractured Hope: South Africa reflects upon the future of her children

95 Theses: Confronting Pentecostal Charismatic Theology

Matthew 6: 33: finding favour with our Father

Letters for my Sons: short stories

21 years after: then what

Unplug Eskom: Trilogy

Run to finish strong

The Khoisan

PREFACE

When the thought of writing this book crossed my mind, it was an exercise in self-questing, a tangled assemblage of hunches and foggy observations. My original thought was to benchmark my life’s progress against people born along the same timeline to see what aspects of my journey reflected in theirs so that I may have reason to shine the light on an otherwise obscure life. What emerged is a picture of a runner facing limits—his own and the world's. I've done a reasonably bad job in my race I have messed up many times, but I continue to look for a better path forward even small, incremental changes add up to progress and serve to renew my determination to finish strong. One person had likened life to a journey on a train ride with many stations along the way. At the point of birth, our parents purchase us tickets to board this train. Our parents get off the train at some stations, leaving us to our journey onwards on our own. Other passengers board the train many of whom become significant other to us like our siblings, marriage partners, children, friends and acquaintances. These passengers too will get off along the way and leave many seats on either side empty, some will go off unnoticed others will stay onboard awhile. The ride will be joyous, sometime full of sorrows, fantasies, expectations, hellos and goodbyes. A good train ride is being helpful, loving, maintaining good relationships with fellow passengers, offering our best and leave them with good memories for we do not know at which station our destination terminates. While I like this metaphor for its warmth it falls short of capturing the full gamut of life’s finer nuances and complexities.

For me life is akin to a long-distance race the image under which life presents itself. Given to each is a race, a racecourse traced for us and a path marked out by God to be kept to by us. This perhaps is the explanation for the attachment I have with the concept of the marathon. I am a race man - one Comrades marathon, six utlramarathons, a dozen half-marathons when time permit 15 and 10km dash in-between, however, I am hopeless finisher, totally lacking the finishing sprint of a runner. For this reason, I do not consider myself an unaccomplished athlete. A marathon provides the theatre for greatness and so fulfils our human need for nobility, not the nobility fashioned in less demanding exploits, but by heroes whose courage has been proven in the supreme measure of physical endurance.

If you have ever done a 5K race, you should be able to identify with the text. If the thought of running in such a race makes you say, ‘I don't think I want to run I’d rather sit and drink an Amstel.’ I point out that you never give up your race because no one is ever going to run this damn thing for you. It is with this in mind that the goal of this book is not to inspire any one to run; it's not about sharing my life’s experiences, I am an imperfect role model. I have penned these words essentially for my sons to find inspiration in my struggles with all its imperfections so that in due season they may finish theirs with agility.

What this book does is to attack the run-of-the-mill motivational bullshit that is standard menu in mainstream media, The Bible tells us we live within a world created by God, in a history inhabited by God and, as human beings we are ultimately accountable to God. The view of the world presented in Scripture is deeply at odds with the typical thinking of modern culture, in which a person is expected to break free of God and live by his own whims. I throw light on the shadows, illuminating the path that God has set before each one of us. It matters none that one had a bad start or stumbled and fell prostrate what matters is whether one finishes strong. I am an eternal optimist even people with the worst past; they end up running the best race of their lives. Yes, the account of my journey rivets and, yes, it instructs but it is much more than that, the message of the race is no more or less than that we each bring to it. To the young person for whom I have written this book, I don’t wish you strength you already possess that but that you may never need to use your strength to finish strong.

CHAPTER 1 – PREPARING TO RUN

God declares, ‘I chose you, when I planned creation, I knew you even before you were conceived, (Ephesians 1: 11) you were not a mistake, for all your days are written in my book of life, I knit you together in your mother’s womb, even your hairs are numbered (Matthew 10: 26) I brought you forward on the day you were born (Psalm 71: 6). I determined the exact time of your birth, and where you would live (Acts 17: 26). My plan for your future has always been filled with hope (Jeremiah 29:11).’ This declaration affirms the principle that God predestined, chosen and set you aside for a purpose, this sets the tone of the rest your life, God believes in you even in instances where you doubt yourself.

God gave your life so that you resemble, reflect and reveal his character in your life’s journey. It is God who shapes character dimensions that reflects and reveal godly attributes namely; love, joy, faith, peace, patience, self-control, kindness, moral goodness and wisdom. When God in scripted your DNA he implanted a genetic code known as Christ in you. Every human life is represented in Christ, to our being he is our reference, the text in which each page drips grace as we discover how our identity is restored in the very image of the invisible God.

Each child is unique. Every child has a name. Every child has a purpose. Every child has a story. Every child has a place in history as he creates a place in the future. To equip us to rule, God gave us immense internal capital great wealth inherent in each that includes a heart for emotions and imagination, a consciousness to distinguishes right from wrong, a will to act and shape history, a soul to appreciate the non-material world and the moral virtue to apply the truth, a personality for temperament and dignity as imago Dei, a mind to reason analytically to think God’s thoughts after Him. Man’s mind is capable of forming ideas, which hold the potential to shape the meta-physical world, and a tongue to form words and use the spoken words to create and shape the universe.

Life is a symphony of communion with God punctuated by distractions along the way. You enter your race but invariably get bogged down by these side distractions that you lose sight of the one thing you were created for, before you know boom you are dead, your race ended. (I remember a face book post by Sello, he thought life is not what you do but what happens to you) Now you can’t falter those who think life sucks.

When you look at yourself in the mirror something strange happens in your brain. The part of the brain that would say ‘hey, that's me in the mirror’ is not activated, instead the part that says ‘I wish I was taller, skinnier, and muscular without a fat bum and hanging tummy.’ In other words, you imagine what you could to become rather than who you are. It’s not that you are vain, you have an ideal self that you want to live up to. With this in your mind, you begin to like the idealized self.

Look at yourself accept your present reality and all its circumstances, this way God is ready to begin working a wonderful thing in you. Life circumstances and experiences don’t change who you inherently are, you never become a better or worse person because of your circumstances. Rather, what happens is as the seasons of your life roll on your growth shifts too, your strength is the measure of the result of growth and not chance of circumstances or the people around you. You progressively become the expression of God’s attributes as you run the race, who you are increases when you mature in one area then it give rise to another character dimension that need development. Material and spiritual talents are thoughts completed and character realized they are fruit. The ideal you enthroned in your heart, the vision you glorify in your mind this you will build your life by, this you will surely become, if it is not God shaping your thoughts and character, you become a self-worshipping little god. Now that really sucks big time.

To test whether you have been sucked into this world’s distorted view of life: Would you feel more loved by God if he liberated you from the bondage of self-regard, at great cost to himself, so that you enjoy making much of him forever? Suppose you answer, ‘I want to be free from self and be filled with joy in God; I want to enjoy making much of God, not me. And I want the fullness of my joy to last for as long as I shall live,’ then you will also have an answer to the question that God created you for his glory. In creating you for his glory, God is creating for your highest joy. He is most glorified in you when you are most satisfied in Him. God’s passion for his own glory gives birth to yours. Very cute proposition of life. In the final analysis, life on earth is less about your pursuits of finding satisfying love, building a family, making money to seek pleasure with, if you are blessed with this stuff, awesome, God will use your pursuits to build your character according to what He will be pleased in you for His glory.

What is a race, a race is not a competition between yourself and another runner, and it is neither a struggle against life but a progressive movement towards a pre-defined goal. In the image of life as a race every person whether living a few decades or well into the 90s is an athlete the difference is only in kind. Threadbare as it is, there are several considerations, which will contribute to the nobleness of your course. Many would run to finish, but few would finish strong. The option of abandoning your race is not open, so you young man or woman inclined to suicide thinking you are ending your race before its time you are hopeless mistaken. Death appears permanent, in truth, death is ephemeral a temporary hold on your race until the day when life is reinstated again to its everlasting state. Death has been swallowed up in victory and the grave has lost its sting it no longer has hold over life. Death is not final, life is.

Characteristically, endurance race involves staying the course no matter how hard it may be in places. Anecdotal evidence of history shows running started in Egypt. Egyptian art, dating back to 3500 BC gives us insight of running in earlier times. Earliest documented reports of athletic events in the ancient world originated in Greece a thousand or more years before the Common Era. There was one unique race where competitors ran with a lit torch in hand. The race organizers expected the runners to keep the torch burning to the end of the race withstanding crosswinds blowing into the flame. The winner was not the guy who showed up first but folk finishing with his torch burning. The first marathon race proper as we know it in modern sense was run from the Panathenaic Stadium in the Greek capital on the 6th of March 1896. It was part of the Pan-Hellenic Sport Celebration. Twelve runners took part and the winner was Harilacos Vasilakos in 3: 18 00.

In the calendar of marathon races they are classified either minor or major depending on the distance. Every marathon runner dreams of winning at least one global major - The Comrades, Boston, New York or Fukuoka at least once in a lifetime. Bill Rodgers of the USA is such one lucky person who won three majors in 1977 and 1978 and again in 1979. That is a feat that may stand for a long time as one of the extraordinary achievements in this sport. The Comrades however, is the pinnacle of all ultraraces in the world it has been in existence for 108 years and embodies attributes of camaraderie, selflessness, dedication, perseverance, and Ubuntu. Bruce Fordyce has completed Comrades in a little under five and half hours nine consecutive times as the fastest runner another major feat in the sport.

Here is a surprising fact something you never thought about the marathon race it is the only event in running, which women go toe-to-toe with men and hand them their heads. The gender difference offers no competitive advantage whatsoever on the one and not the other this has nothing to do with hyperandrogenism. Ann Trason and Krissy Moehl of Florida, USA beat man regularly in ultraraces. Once, Emily Baer finished top 10 in one event while stopping to breastfeed her baby at the water stations. Eat that!

Elena and Olesya Nurgalieva the Russian twins won a combined ten Comrades titles between 2003 and 2013 consistently beating men. You might ask, how’s that possible? According to research, humans are the world’s best distance runners because we are designed for distance, we are the greatest distance runners on earth born with remarkable natural endurance capable of outrunning wild antelopes our body mechanics are designed in such way that it is possible to accomplish this feat.. At one stage in ancient history, we hunted on foot men, women, young and old together. Humans have physiological abilities for running long legs, firm buttocks, and springy structures in the feet, among other features.

One of the reasons we are good at endurance race relate to our thermoregulation properties. We are bipedal but the linearity is good in terms of helping us lose heat and absorb less from solar radiation. We are small, we have less hair, and most importantly, we can sweat allowing us to exercise at fairly high work rates without reaching critical body temperature that would force