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Have you ever considered how expensive endurance sports can be? There are the obvious financial costs: equipment, gym fees, race registrations, travel costs, and others. But what about your time? How much time have you spent on training, racing, and traveling? What is that worth? Who else is paying that price... your spouse, kids, neighbors, church family, employer, etc.? What about your mental and emotional energy? How much focus, energy, and thought goes into endurance sports, even when you’re not training or racing? If you add this all up, I believe you’ll agree with a simple conclusion… endurance sports are expensive!

Here’s a more important question though: Based on what we read yesterday, is your investment in endurance sports accomplishing your purpose, or is it doing something else? God has given us a purpose – to glorify Him. Are you accomplishing it? Are you using your resources, the things God has graciously and abundantly given to you… your time, talents, and treasure, to glorify Him?

The Bible is clear that there are blessings and consequences for how we use what God places in our hands during our short time on earth. Are you investing well, accomplishing God’s purposes so that you may hear, “Well done!”? Or, are you wasting what He has placed in your hands, either accomplishing nothing, something that ultimately will not matter in terms of eternity, or perhaps even something directly opposed to the Lord? As the Creator, God defines and outlines how we should invest and whether we have been faithful, wasteful, or worse. Today, I encourage you to invest wisely in glorifying the Lord through all that you do!

Reflections:
1. Have you spent more time, talent, or treasure in your endurance pursuits? Have you ever tallied the costs of your participation in endurance sports?
2. In terms of God’s purposes, has your involvement in endurance sports been an investment or wasted expense?
3. What is one thing you could do this week that would turn a waste into a faithful investment?

To become part of the FCA Endurance team and receive encouragement on how to steward your investment in endurance sports wisely, please go to: www.FCAEndurance.org/join