My oldest daughter, Amy, and my youngest son, David ran a marathon in Orlando this past weekend. The distance is 26.2 miles. Amy is a personal trainer and had run a marathon last year. This was 29 year old David's first time. He had trained to do this for a year.
We arrived there at 5:00 AM and David's anxiousness about the race was palpable. He was fidgety and nervous as we approached the drop off point. Due to various circumstances, he had only been able to run 18 miles on his last long run. He should have been able to build up to 22 by then. Could he make the distance now? He had tossed and turned, finding it hard to sleep the night before. He hoped he would be able to finish the race, but doubts haunted him now that the morning of the marathon was here.
Amy took her cell phone with her to keep Melanie and me posted about their progress along the way. At 6:00, the phone rang. "We're off," Amy said, with obvious enthusiasm in her voice. After that the phone would ring every five miles. We would encourage them and onward they would run.
At 10 miles, Amy called. "David said he would speak to you, but he swallowed his tongue two miles back," she joked. At 13 miles, she called back to tell us that his shirt was rubbing the nipples on his chest raw and he was bleeding. The fun was wearing off of this event. He kept running.
At 18 miles, the phone rang again. By now they were both tired - too tired to laugh and joke as they had been doing.
At 23 miles, it all unraveled. David said it felt like he was running on shards of glass and that every muscle in his body hurt. He consciously had to tell his feet, "Step, step, step." His thoughts began to bombard him with the belief that he had to quit. "I hate to stop after coming this far," he thought, "but I can't make it."
Being an accomplished trainer, his sister Amy knew what to do. "You can go for 30 seconds more, can't you?" she asked. He thought he could, so they kept running. And he did. Then Amy said, "Only a mile more, David. Can you go just sixty more seconds?" With tears streaming down his cheeks, he did.
"There's the finish line ahead, David!" Amy said. "Don't stop now! There it is!" David forced one foot in front of the other. "Everything seemed so surrealistic," he would later say. "I only saw the finish line." He pushed himself a little more and finally, David and Amy crossed the finished line together. Now the tears were tears of joy.
The Bible teaches that the ministry of the Holy Spirit in our lives is much like that of Amy toward David during the race. In John 14:16, Jesus promised that another paraclete would come to help His disciples. The word "paraclete" comes from the Greek word paráklētos and refers to a helper who comes to enable us to finish the task.
The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of Christ. He lives in us, empowering us to keep on moving forward through the course of life even when it seems that we can't take another step. Looking toward the finish line, the Apostle Paul said, "I have finished my course,
I have kept the faith. Finally there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness,which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will give to me on that day, and not to me only but also to all who have loved his appearing" (2 Timothy 4:7-8).
As you and I move toward the finish line in this life, we have someone who runs the race with us. Or to be more specific, He runs the race through us. All we need to do to finish the race is to depend on Him.
I'm proud of my children. How long did it take them to cross the finish line? I don't have a clue and couldn't care less. They ran over 26 miles! The point wasn't their time. The point was to succeed by finishing. Many quit along the way. Some were carried away on stretchers. My kids kept going and kept going and kept going. And they finished. Finishing well - that's the victory of the race - not just on the race course but in all of life. Depend on the Spirit of Christ within you to empower you to keep running. Even when you feel like giving up, He will be with you to guide you across the finish line.
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