Life In The Lane

In swimming practice, warm-up laps, and racing, lanes are set up to keep things smooth. For a race, the swimmer dives aggressively into his lane and depending on the length of the race, stays in that lane until he hits the wall and does a flip turn and heads back down the same lane. The lane markers are constructed so the water flows through them and breaks up  the wash from the adjacent lane.
You can't cross over to another lane during a race. When you are standing on the starting block, the lane is all yours!

The Hebrew tribes of the book of Joshua were each assigned lanes. God never intended to have them pile up on top of each other.  The land they each got was for them to settle in, grow and thrive.

Moses was Joshua's mentor. In Numbers 11 there is a great example of this mentoring.

24 And Moses went out, and told the people the words of the Lord, and gathered the seventy men of the elders of the people, and set them round about the tabernacle.25 And the Lord came down in a cloud, and spake unto him, and took of the spirit that was upon him, and gave it unto the seventy elders: and it came to pass, that, when the spirit rested upon them, they prophesied, and did not cease.
26 But there remained two of the men in the camp, the name of the one was Eldad, and the name of the other Medad: and the spirit rested upon them; and they were of them that were written, but went not out unto the tabernacle: and they prophesied in the camp.
27 And there ran a young man, and told Moses, and said, Eldad and Medad do prophesy in the camp.
28 And Joshua the son of Nun, the servant of Moses, one of his young men, answered and said, My lord Moses, forbid them.
29 And Moses said unto him, Enviest thou for my sake? would God that all the Lord's people were prophets, and that the Lord would put his spirit upon them!

Moses response to Joshua was along the lines of 'Are you concerned about me? Don't be! It is not about me!' God's heart was "would God that all the Lord's people were prophets, and that the Lord would put his spirit upon them!" Eldad and Medad were not in the tabernacle, they were out in the camp.

In the New Testament, God's spirit is available to all. We all have our own lanes to work, practice, thrive and enjoy.  An athletic analogy can just go so far. Spiritually, our competition is not with each other, but against that which would hold us back or attempt to drag us down.