I’ve been thinking a lot about endurance lately. Partly it’s because a lot of people I love are facing the kind of things that can make you want to quit, and partly because I just started listening to a book by Dean Karnazes, one of the more famous ultra-runners.
There’s no doubt that endurance is a key part of our faith, and even Jesus said that we’d need it to get to the end (see Matthew 24:13). The very fact that Jesus calls us to endure should sober and strengthen us.
It sobers us because it forces us to remember that no one endures easy things. The call to follow Jesus isn’t a call to endure wealth and health. It’s a call to endure the fires and trials of life that are refining our faith and making it more precious than gold (see 1 Peter 1:7).
But the call to endure also provides us strength because it reminds us that we can endure because others have endured before us. There may be times when we run alone, but we are never in the race alone.
[Tweet “There may be times when we run alone, but we are never in the race alone.”][Tweet “There is a destiny ahead of us that is bigger than the distraction in front of us.”]Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a huge crowd of witnesses to the life of faith, let us strip off every weight that slows us down, especially the sin that so easily trips us up. And let us run with endurance the race God has set before us. (Hebrews 12:1 NLT, emphasis mine)
My prayer for all of us today is that we would feel the strength from the stands. That we would look up and realize that there is a destiny ahead of us that is bigger than the distraction in front of us. I pray that we all, with eyes fixed steadfastly on Jesus and ears ringing with the cheers of the crowd, simply continue to run with endurance the race set out before us.
