The Hardest Part Of Faith

I flirted with jogging for several years when I was in my twenties but was never consistent about it. Even though I wanted to be faithful, something always got in the way. I started jogging seriously in 1974 when we moved from Dallas, Texas, to Chatsworth, California, the Los Angeles area where I had taken the position of Executive Vice President of an international missions organization. I learned to love to run in the late afternoon after a full day in the office.

I normally got to the office about 7 a.m. and tried to get home around 4 or 4:30 in the afternoon. Whether I was home, on the road, or even in a foreign country, being outside and jogging for 30 or 40 minutes was something I looked forward to. The exercise and fresh air helped me relax and clear my head from a day full of meetings or just old-fashioned busyness!

Jogging doesn’t require a lot of equipment. A good pair of running shoes, socks, shorts and a T-shirt and I was ready. Oh, yes, there was one other piece of equipment: my trusty $15 Timex sports watch. I loved that little watch because they had named it Ironman and when I put that watch on, that was me; in fact, I still have it!

At home, I liked to run a predetermined route and I always had several paths of different lengths that I could follow, depending on how I felt. I would warm up and start jogging, and then choose which route I would take: the two-mile route, the three-mile, etc.

As I was finishing my run, a strange discussion would take place in my head. Up ahead I would see the invisible finish line that meant I had completely run my path. My mind would start cajoling me with little statements like, “There’s the finish line; you can stop running now and walk the rest of the way.” Or, “You’re getting too old for this (I was thirty!); your heart is pounding, you’re sweating, your legs are tired. You can quit now; you don’t have to run the last 200 or 300 yards!” Or, “There’s nobody around. Who will know if you quit now? What difference does it make?” Almost every day during the last few minutes, the last half mile was always the hardest to run. I ran consistently for nearly 25 years and, true to form, my mind never gave up trying to convince me to quit early, to slow down just before I got to the finish line.

When Paul was writing to Timothy, his son in the gospel, in 2 Timothy 4:7, he says: “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.”

Paul knew that his life was nearly complete as he penned these words to this young man he loved so much. I think one of the things very much on his mind was the satisfaction that he did not quit short of the goal. He didn’t stop running the race a half mile early because there was no one to witness his going across the finish line, or because of the intensity of the persecution. Paul was setting a standard for Timothy and others to follow.

I am indebted to David Wilkerson for a very brief chapter he wrote nearly 50 years ago in a little devotional-style book entitled I’M NOT MAD AT GOD. In a chapter entitled “The Faith of Giants,” David wrote, “Can a man still speak the language of faith when all his leadings ‘blow up’ in his face? The giants of faith did! Men of faith faced the most fiery trials. God has peculiar ways of developing faith, and the deeper in God you go, the more peculiar will be your testing. Do not think that afflictions are necessarily proof that you are displeasing Him! Miracles are produced only amidst impossibilities. The most critical part of faith is the last half hour.”

God wants us to finish the race well. No one said it is going to get any easier. With the Apostle, I want to be able to say, “I have fought a good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.”

The hardest part of faith is the last half mile!

“For you have need of endurance, so that when you have done the will of God you might receive what is promised” (Hebrews 10:36, ESV).