With Torches Still Lit

In the First Presidency message from this month President Uchtdorf spoke about a race in ancient Greece.  He said this, “Runners competed in a relay race called a lampadedromia.  In the race, runners held a torch in their hand and passed it on to the next runner until the final member of the team crossed the finish line.”  He then applied the principle: “There is a profound lesson here, one taught by prophets ancient and modern: while it is important to start the race, it is even more important that we finish with our torch still lit” (Finish With Your Torch Still Lit).  In other words, it is not enough to get engaged in the gospel once—we must continue and endure to the end in faith. 

                Paul seemed to have especially focused on this principle.   He was certainly one who exemplified endurance to the end, and he likewise employed the analogy of running a race.  He wrote to the Corinthians, “Know ye not that they which run in a race run all, but one receiveth the prize? So run, that ye may obtain” (1 Corinthians 9:24).  I don’t think he was trying to tell them that only one of them would win the race but rather that to win they had to finish the race.  To the Hebrews he said,  “Let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us, Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith” (Hebrews 12:1-2).  It’s not the speed in running that is important, but that we keep going “with patience.”  As the writer of Ecclesiastes said, “The race is not to the swift” (Ecclesiastes 9:11).  Instead, it is to those that keep trying and keep going.  As Elder Renlund said last April, “God cares a lot more about who we are and who we are becoming than about who we once were.  He cares that we keep on trying” (Latter-day Saints Keep on Trying).  In the words of King Benjamin, “It is not requisite that a man should run faster than he has strength. And again, it is expedient that he should be diligent, that thereby he might win the prize” (Mosiah 4:27).  We don’t have to try to keep up with anyone else in the race of life, but we do need to be diligent in trying to follow the Savior.  Elder Holland put it this way, “We are not in a race against each other to see who is the wealthiest or the most talented or the most beautiful or even the most blessed. The race we are really in is the race against sin” (The Laborers in the Vineyard).  In that race we must keep going despite setbacks and difficulties.  As President Uchtdorf put it, “This race of discipleship is not a sprint; it’s a marathon. And it makes little difference how fast we go.  As long as we continue to rise up and move toward our Savior, we win the race.”          

                One of my favorite scriptures comes from Paul’s counsel to the Hebrews: “We are not of them who draw back” (Hebrews 10:39).  We might be slow, we might feel that we are not as righteous or blessed as others we see around us, but the Lord is only concerned that we don’t draw back and that we simply keep going in the path of discipleship.  We are promised that if we leave this life on the right track then we cannot fall off it in the next—we don’t have to reach perfection but we do need to be moving in the direction the Lord has laid out for us.  And that comes only by faith in and through the grace of Jesus Christ.  With that, we will indeed finish with our torches still lit.