This blog post is adapted from a reflection written by Rev. Samantha Gonzalez-Block for our Gathering on May 9th, 2025.
"Guide my feet while I run this race,
Guide my feet while I run this race,
Guide my feet while I run this race,
‘Cuz I don’t want to run this race in vain!"
Have you ever found yourself running a race? Perhaps it was for school, around your house, or even at a track meet. Maybe you’re a marathon runner, or someone who hits the pavement every day.
The Book of Hebrews compares life to running a race.
The African American spiritual “Guide My Feet” speaks of what we need to get through this race no matter how difficult the journey. The lyrics are simple and soulful and they speak directly of a God who is close, active, and moving right alongside us.
This song was written during the most unbearable wilderness – in the time of chattel slavery when human beings in this country were being bought and sold because of the shade of their skin; and yet this same group of marginalized people still found faith in the wilderness. And in their fight for freedom, they sang songs we cherish. Songs like: “Guide my Feet,” “Wade in the Water,” “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot,” and “Lift Every Voice and Sing.”
Wilderness walking. Wilderness running. Wilderness singing.
Life can certainly compare to running a race, and often it can feel like it is a race through the wilderness. As you’re reading this today, I imagine some of you may feel like you’re running your own race – maybe trudging through a wilderness of uncertainty. You might be wondering how long this journey will last, if you have the strength to keep going, or feeling a bit overwhelmed by everything around you, with that familiar question echoing in your mind: “Are we there yet?”
Our diverse community is unique in this moment, as so many of us are on the front line of some profound changes these days. These changes have left us with a wide range of emotions and situations, all of which we hold with tenderness and empathy.
Some of us here have lost our jobs or we have said farewell to dear colleagues. Some of us here have projects that have shifted or grants that have been halted. Some of us here are discerning what our next steps may look like regarding retirement, college, high school, even kindergarten. Surely many of us are asking where do our bodies need to show up these days?
Some of us are out singing and marching. Some of us are continuing to do the good work we deeply believe in. Certainly, we are continuing to discern how we can lean on the lessons of our faiths and respond to the needs of the most vulnerable among us – the stranger, the poor, the marginalized – and care for our community partners and friends who rely on us here and across the globe.
You see, a walk in the wilderness is not like a walk in the park – there is much on our hearts to discern and trouble us. And yet we remember what grounds us, and directs us, and helps us put one foot in front of the other. In the thick of wilderness, now and always, we sing:
“Hold my hand while I run this race,
Hold my hand while I run this race,
Hold my hand while I run this race,
‘Cuz I don’t want to run this race in vain!”
Lent is the Christian season of wilderness walking. It begins with Ash Wednesday and ends with Easter, and it always seems to arrive right on time. On Ash Wednesday our journey began. We gathered in person and online to remember our mortality and the fragile gift of life. We placed ashes on our foreheads and said the words: ”From dust you came and to dust you shall return.” We began to discern what we will be practicing today: considering what we might give up and take on this season in order to walk more closely with God.
Lent mirrors Jesus’ journey through the wilderness. In the Gospel of Luke, we find Jesus starving and thirsty, wandering like Moses did for 40 days and nights. Then an unlikely character – the devil – shows up in our story and offers him the most tempting opportunity to make all the pain go away fast under one condition. “I will give you all authority and splendor – if only you worship me,” he says.
The devil tests a delirious, vulnerable Jesus, inviting him only to turn away from God, from his Jewish faith, from his community in order to receive sustenance for himself in this moment. It is an attractive offer, and anyone in desperation might find it appealing. But instead of being seduced by it, Jesus digs deep. He looks his tempter in the eye, and with a sore throat, he sings about a God whose presence does not waver:
“Stand by me while I run this race,
Stand by me while I run this race,
Stand by me while I run this race,
‘Cuz I don’t want to run this race in vain!”
Surely we could spend much time unpacking what unfolds for Jesus in the wilderness, but what is particularly interesting for us is what happens next – after those 40 days of running. Lent has a destination – the promise of rebirth and the joy of Easter. Jesus’ journey doesn’t end in this wilderness- it is just the beginning.
Columnist David Brooks writes that it is in times of wilderness when we have an opportunity to see ourselves anew: “In times of suffering, you can be broken or you can be broken open. And people who are transformed are broken open.” Here, Jesus breaks open: from misery comes ministry. God is in full focus now. When he leaves the wilderness, he begins to heal people, to invite outcasts to work and eat alongside him, and he begins to preach about a God whose love is boundless and transformative: “Blessed are the poor, blessed are the meek, blessed are the peacemakers.”
As we move through our Lenten journey this year, and as we navigate our own personal versions of wilderness, let’s keep our eyes not only focused on the road we are racing down, but on the destinations we seek. Let’s not be “broken” by the trials we face, but instead, be “broken open” to be embodiments of God’s love, justice, and goodness.
As an interfaith community, we have some needed skills and responsibilities –
to be bridge builders and peacemakers,
to be singers of change and potters of kindness,
to be curious and compassionate,
to be fearless, loud and proud,
to be true to our hearts,
to be advocates for spaces of true welcome and belonging here and now.
This Lent, may we care for one another along the way. May we care for ourselves along the way. And may we always remember that there is One who cares – even carries – us through the wilderness – for however long and far we run. And so together, we sing:
“Guide our feet while we run this race,
Guide our feet while we run this race,
Guide our feet while we run this race,
‘Cuz we don’t want to run this race in vain!”
