Get Up and Run!

When you are running a race, you run to win. And you run to finish the race. In the same way, in the Christian life, it is not enough simply to start this race we are running. We have to finish the race too. And we stumble at times.

In the film Chariots of Fire, the main character, Eric Liddell, fell in his important race. He was hurt and discouraged. But he got up again and continued to run. He finished the race, and he won it. Even when you stumble, even when you fall, you can still get up and run. You can still win. It’s not over till it’s over.

Some of us may have stumbled. We might have even fallen. Or maybe we have been discouraged or something has happened to set us back. It is not too late to get up and start running again.

For instance, if ever there was a time in your life when it seemed as though God did not come through for you, if ever you have been tempted as a Christian to just give up following Jesus, or if ever you have read a passage of Scripture that didn’t seem to make any sense to you, then know this: you are in good company. You have a good idea of how Jesus’ disciples felt on the day when Jesus laid down some of His hardest teaching yet (see John 6). But instead of giving up on their faith, they grew deeper in it. That was a day when the wheat was separated from the chaff, when the true disciples were separated from the false ones.

In the same way, will we decide to stop—or to keep running?