HELEN SANDERS
4-27-2024
DON’T QUIT

As a young girl I was very athletic. I loved to do all the things that my two older brothers did. They played hardball, so I played hardball. They pole vaulted, so I pole vaulted. They ran, so I ran. I had a lot of fear as a young girl, so if I visited my friend a block away and came home in the dark, I ran with my feet barely touching the ground, in case the “boogie man” was out there and might catch me. (I got delivered of this fear, but that is another story). I was a very fast runner in those days, and when there was a race, I ran to win. Somewhere I have some old blue ribbons from grade school for winning some of the contests that they had.

One thing about running a race, you can’t give your all to begin with. Many do that, and they get winded, or run out of steam before it is time to get to the finish line. They don’t make it because of this. The press always comes just before the finish line. It is painful to press when you are tired but that is when it must happen. I sense that there are many that have run their spiritual race, and just before victory they fall short. You see, the race for us as Christians is not a sprint. It is a marathon. It is a daily race that we run. Yet, obstacles come up and cause us to stumble, or lag behind. We get “tired” in this race, and there are many that have fallen by the wayside because they gave up.

We have a real opponent in the spiritual race, and it is Satan. He will do his best to trip you as you run and put obstacles in your way. He doesn’t play fair. He is out to destroy you before you win the “crown”. Many have gotten discouraged because they never were prepared for this spiritual race. As a young girl, it was a natural thing to run, but I had been running for a long time before those races came. Often in the spiritual we are told to run, but we’re not told about the things that will try to deter us. It may be finances, or sicknesses, or any number of other things, but we can’t quit. We must keep our eyes on the prize, which is Jesus Christ, and run with endurance. We must condition ourselves to run and exercise our spiritual muscles, so they don’t fail us in the race.

Philippians 2:16 says, “Holding forth the word of life; that I may rejoice in the day of Christ, that I have not run in vain, neither laboured in vain.” Then in Philippians 3:14 it says, “I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.”

If we could look back and see just how close we were to winning before we quit, we would definitely have pressed harder. Is this easy? No way. We can be spiritually winded as much as physically winded, but we can’t quit my friends. Victory is at hand. We must press to win the prize! Don’t Quit!