Endurance
The contests I most admire are the ones that require endurance. It is the twenty-plus miles of the marathon, more than the one-hundred meters, which gets my attention. Twenty-four hours at Le Mans requires a different strategy than that of the Indianapolis Five-Hundred. The cross country race at Leadville, Colorado takes several days (and you have to carry all of your food and gear). The thirty-five mile Grand Canyon Run begins at three AM and includes going up and down the canyon wall trails four times (two ascent and two descent).
Some of the greatest applause is reserved for stragglers that walk, limp, or drag themselves across the finish line — just because they endured the whole course. This is especially true if they completed it with a handicap. Rocky goes all fifteen rounds. His goal was to “go the distance” — never thinking he could actually win. His famous endurance statement in the last Rocky movie was: “It is not how hard you can hit, it is how hard you can be hit and keep moving forward.”
Just keep moving forward. That is all you have to do. You can do poorly. You can go through the task as less than average, but completing it makes you a champion. There are many things you can do, but quitting is not one of them. “He that endures to the end will be saved…” is the keynote of the Christian journey. It is not how many sins you did or did not commit; it is whether or not you were “faithful until death.”
Success at anything is more endurance than genius. It was Edison’s thousandth-plus try on the light bulb that finally worked. If he had quit one try sooner, he would have been a failure. Einstein’s papers were originally rejected. He stayed with it. He submitted them until other physicists got the point.
Today is one of the more than thirty-thousand marathon days of your life. Your body may quit but YOU will not. To win is to endure. God will get you through this one as well or better than the thousands of previous days. Have a little faith. Be patient. Look forward. Achieve in the moment.
