Finish Strong

My first three years of college, I ran cross country.  I know that’s hard for you to believe, but I did.  We usually ran about three and a half miles - 5k in today’s distances.  I never finished above tenth, but I always finished, just a personal goal of mine.  Ha, ha!  I ran a race at covenant college, a course unfamiliar to me.  But I did well because I had a runner from Covenant right behind me all the way.  Throughout the race, he would get ahead of me by a few steps, and then I would overtake him.  But he never fell very far behind me.  And somehow, I knew that he was pushing me rather than me pushing him.  And then, a hundred yards to the finish line, he began his move.  I did my best to punch it out, but I just couldn’t keep up the pace.  I had given just too much during the entire race.  So this unnamed runner from Covenant College beat me by three steps.  I remember it clearly as if it were just yesterday.  If at any time during the three-and-a-half-mile race I would have gained four steps on him, I would have beaten him in the end.  But I didn’t.  And, I remember that race almost every week.  That was fifty-one years ago.  And that has been a reminder for me for fifty-one years.  Don’t let up; keep up the pace; finish strong.  Paul said in II Timothy 4:7 & 8, “I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith: Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, shall give me at that day: and not to me only, but unto all them also that love his appearing.”