One of the deepest healings in the story of God’s grace in me, was when the love of God freed me from believing that being runner up, being second, was shameful. It was an exhausting lie to live by, but live by it I did, from the age of 7 onwards.

Thinking of “runners up” in the worlds of tennis and football this morning in the wake of yesterday’s events at Wimbledon and Wembley . I hope they can celebrate their magnificent achievements once they get over understandable deep disappointment.

I don’t want to come away with some sort of cliche about the love of God on the back of this, but the fact is it was the felt love of God that set me free from the huge burden of a deep verdict of “failure” which I carried for the first few decades of my life and more than 2 decades of ministry. Those who knew me in those years would scratch their heads in confusion to hear this, for everything about me had the appearance of an almost enviable success.

I still want to run for the prize as the Apostle Paul encourages us all to do. But I have, by God’s grace, cast off the weight that clung so closely to me for so long.

If you are still carrying a similar weight, my prayer as I write these thoughts is that somehow God will help you rest and run in your belovedness.

When you are tempted to look on someone and wish you could have a taste of the success they seem to enjoy, remember that success may be making them miserable, contributing even to depression and anxiety, sucking the life out of them. It may be killing something in them. Not all disabilities are visible.

God bless

Kenny