LOOKIN’ GOOD [W, 5-6-20]

“DAILY” DEVOTIONAL: Listening for the Spirit

LOOKIN’ GOOD                    [W, 5-6-20]

I don’t know if long distance runners still try to encourage one another in this way, but when I was doing distance races, if we saw someone struggling, we’d yell, “Lookin’ good.” Because he or she was not lookin’ good. In fact, they were lookin’ bad.

Especially in races on out-and-back courses, we who were slower would still be going out as the leaders were coming back. They were on the other side of the trail—usually a blacktop road—but we could see them well. They’d be sweaty and panting. Their clothes would be in disarray. Their teeth would be bared and clinched.  Their faces twisted in the agony of pain and effort. And we’d yell, “Lookin’ good.” They looked terrible, but they were giving it everything they had. That was a good look.

If you didn’t understand the running culture of the time, you’d think we were the worst sorts of friends and race-mates, insulting our fellows at the very moment they most needed comfort and support. Indeed, in this 9^th decade of my living, when I look like an old man who’s been “rode hard and put away wet,” it’s perfectly okay for you not to say, to me, “Lookin’ good.”  But we runners understood. That was the best possible accolade. I longed to have someone yell at me back then, “Lookin’ good.” Because it meant that I was giving my all.

When we see Jesus on the cross, body broken and spirit in despair, feeling that his life was in vain, that the world did not respond or understand, even though he tried so hard, the proper response is, “Lookin’ good.”

JRMcF