Endurance

[en-door-uhns]  –noun: the ability or strength to continue or last, esp. despite fatigue, stress, or other adverse conditions. I was running today in Penninsula. If you've never run on the towpath that runs through this little town, then you're missing out. Especially this time of year, with the leaves falling and the landscape changing...it was beautiful. I used to run over there in the summer with my friends Ashleigh and Andrew. Ash was training for a half marathon, and Andrew and I ran with her. I've had exercise induced asthma for my entire life, so running has always been difficult. I'm also tall and not really built for running, so the longest distance I'd covered up until that point was maybe 3 miles. And it would have been a difficult and uncomfortable 3 miles. The three of us kept each other accountable and ran several times a week, even if that meant waiting until 11:30 at night, or 8:00 am on a Saturday morning. We moved our schedules around so that running was the priority. We were sweaty most of the time. Each week we increased our mileage, with long runs on Wednesdays and longer runs on Saturdays. We bought new shoes, running gear, new songs for our iPods, and even changed the way we ate.After a few weeks, we were easily running 6, 7, 8 miles, during the week, 10, 11 miles on the weekends. Our bodies changed: clothes were looser, legs firmer, people making comments about how great we look. I remember the first time I wasn't gasping for breathe. We were running our normal route on a trail, a particularly hilly trail, and I was holding a conversation as if I was walking. I had never accomplished that before, and it was an amazing feeling.One of the biggest lessons I learned about running was not about the physical stamina it took. Sure, I needed to eat well, drink water, run regularly and rest, but it was the mind games that either kept me going or left me walking alone.Was I strong or was I weak? Was I fast or was I slow? Could I do this, could I run another mile when every muscle fiber was screaming at me to stop and my lungs were breathing fire? My hip joints ached from running for 2 hours straight, my knees felt numb, my posture was slipping. Could I finish? The parallels to life as a Christian are numerous and surprising. Even as I ran today, at mile 3, I was tired. I hadn't been keeping up with running since I started work, so I was a little out of shape. But I knew I could finish. I could do anything. My body knew the movements, knew to keep putting one foot in front of the other, to swing my arms, to relax my face. What's needed is endurance, both in mind and in body. It's accepting that I'm uncomfortable, that it's difficult, and that I will have to work to finish and finish well, but believing it's possible. Paul writes about our endurance as Christians, that the endurance needed to finish this life well and in a manner worthy of the calling we have received, is prompted by our hope of things to come (1 Thess 1:3). He says to the Colossions in his opening prayer, "And we pray this in order that you may live a life worthy of the Lord and may please him in every way: bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of God, being strengthened with all power according to his glorious might so that you may have great endurance and patience, and joyfully giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in the kingdom of light" (Colossians 1:10-12). And I can always think back to the writer of Hebrews, who writes, "Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us" (12:1). I want to run strong. I want to finish well. I want to persevere, to endure to the end, because He is worthy.