“I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith” 2 Timothy 4:7 NCV
I watched a YouTube video of a women’s championship track event where part way through the race, one of the runners tripped and fell flat on her face. She immediately picked herself up and not only starts to run again but ended up winning.
As I watched the video, I thought of the many times I’ve fallen flat on my face. All too often I didn’t want to get back up. I wanted to stay on the ground and cry, feeling sorry for myself. This happened more than once during the hard moments of raising a son as a single mom and at the end of a long dating relationship. I came to the conclusion that I might as well give up. My “race” was over.
But life demands we continue to run. The attitude of not giving up is exemplified by Dallas Willard in his last days of fighting pancreatic cancer. A friend said, “the phrase that came to his mind, watching Dallas walk in the valley of the shadow of death, was ‘Game on.”’
Both the video and the story inspire me. They remind me to not give up even when the pain is real and no one would blame me for staying on the ground. As the apostle Paul said, “We often suffer, but we are never crushed. Even when we don’t know what to do, we never give up.” (2 Corinthians 4:8 CEV)
I might be bloodied. I might be limping. I might be hurting so badly I want to die. But the game is on and I will choose to pick myself up, to not quit until the race is over.
