Smell Good Series

A marathon, for most runners, seems long, but it is always 26.2 miles. Always. Except for the Lakeshore Marathon held in Chicago on Memorial Day weekend 20 years ago (2005). That day the 529 runners who finished actually ran 27.2 miles, one mile more than they were supposed to. Only, nobody told them so at the time. The organizers simply miscalculated where the finish line should be. In fact, the whole race was a mess, with missing mile markers and confused directions. One woman who had been leading early on got completely turned around. “I was so confused,” she said, “I wanted to cry.”

The organizer, a man named Mark Cihlar, issued an apology—kind of—on a website. “[Last-minute changes] caused us to miscalculate, and we foolishly added an extra mile—how terrible!” (Julie Deardorff, "Unwitting Marathon Runners Go Extra Mile," Chicago Tribune; 6-3-05; www.PreachingToday.com).

Life is like that sometimes. It's tough enough to get through a week, and then someone adds an extra mile—an impossible deadline, another sick child, an overdue notice on a bill, a disruption in your plans. Sometimes, you just want to cry.

So what do you do at those times? Well, if you have your Bibles, I invite you to turn with me to 2 Corinthians 2, 2 Corinthians 2, where the Apostle Paul admits feeling defeated.

2 Corinthians 2:12-13 When I came to Troas to preach the gospel of Christ, even though a door was opened for me in the Lord, my spirit was not at rest because I did not find my brother Titus there. So I took leave of them and went on to Macedonia (ESV).

Paul had sent Titus to Corinth with a tearful letter, a letter Paul wrote “out of much affliction and anguish of heart” (vs.4). After delivering the letter, Titus was supposed to meet Paul in Troas, a coastal city in current day Turkey, across the Aegean Sea from ancient Greece (or Macedonia). However, Titus failed to meet Paul in Troas.

Paul was anxious to hear how Titus’ visit to Corinth went. Did they receive the letter well? How did they respond? Was the issue resolved? There were a thousand questions going through Paul’s mind.

In addition to his apprehension about the church in Corinth, Paul no doubt was concerned about Titus, as well. For all Paul knew, Titus might have fallen prey to highway robbers. As a result, Paul found no rest for his spirit. He had no peace of mind, which prevented him from preaching the gospel in Troas.

Warren Wiersbe says, “Paul had open doors of ministry at Troas, but he had no peace in his heart to walk through those doors. Humanly speaking, it looked like the end of the battle, with Satan as the victor (Bible Exposition Commentary).

No doubt, Paul felt like a failure. And…

SOMETIMES, YOU FEEL DEFEATED, AS WELL.

Don’t you? I know I do at times. You feel like a failure. You feel discouraged, because you can’t do what you really want to do.

Condoleezza Rice, former Secretary of State under George W. Bush (2005-2009), started college with a different career in mind, a professional music career. She majored in piano performance, but the summer after her sophomore year, she went to study and perform at the Aspen Musical Festival.

While there, she came into contact with, as she put it, “11-year-olds who could play from sight what had taken [her] all year to learn.” She knew that she could not compete with people of such innate talent, so her pursuit of a music career ended that summer.

At the start of her junior year, she changed her major from music to international relations. And the rest is history.

Rice earned graduate degrees in political science from Notre Dame and would go on to become an expert on the Soviet Union and eventually foreign policy. She served as the National Security advisor (from 2001 to 2005) and then US Secretary of State, as the first woman of color to do so (D. Michael Lindsay, Hinge Moments, IVP, 2021, pages 137; www.PreachingToday.com).

Her failure to walk through one door led her to push open a new door of opportunity. You do the same! When you feel defeated, don’t quit. Instead, push open a new door of opportunity.

Hellen Keller once said, “When one door of happiness closes, another opens; but often we look so long at the closed door that we do not see the one which has been opened for us (“The Faith of Helen Keller,” Christianity Today, Vol. 38, no. 1; www. PreachingToday.com).

So, how do you overcome the discouragement of failure? How do you find that open door when another door has been slammed shut in your face? Well, you do what Paul did when he felt defeated. Take a look at verse 14.