How to Stay Faithful in Your Race When the Finish Line Feels Far Away

For the Joy Set Before Us

I’ve thought about this question so much this year because my husband and I both just turned fifty in February. I don’t know what it is, but when you get to this age, you just really start to reflect on the seasons of life. I’ve only run one marathon, but I distinctly remember the different sections of the race and how they felt. There were times when I just wanted to stop, but I thought, Okay, if I keep on putting one foot in front of the other, I will eventually get to the finish line.

Life is so much like that. I think about the season of being a teenager and looking forward to going to college. And then I think back to my college years, wondering if I would get married or if I would get the job that I wanted. And then the season of parenting young children.

All of these seasons are designed to produce something. And in every season, God has used my circumstances to make me into the person I am now, and he’s going to continue doing that. So, every season is a step along this beautiful journey.

But there are hard points. During my marathon, I remember a point where I felt like I couldn’t breathe very well. In those times, I think of the beginning of Hebrews 12. It says, “Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight and sin, which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him, endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.”

I think about that almost every day. I say to myself, when I’m dealing with something hard, For the joy set before him, he endured the cross. For the joy set before him, he endured the cross. And so for the joy set before me—which is to see his face someday and be in the presence of God—I will endure whatever the hard thing is right now. It is his victory that gives us strength. And so in every season of life, we need to trust that he’s using it to make us into the kind of people who will endure to the end.

Sharonda Cooper is coauthor with Winfree Brisley of Turn Your Eyes: A Bible Study on the Psalms.

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