Running with Perseverance

"...let us run with perseverance the race set before us, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher (perfector) of our faith" Hebrews 12:1-2

I read these verses the other day and they have really hit home for me. I have been exercising regularly since I had Micah 8 months ago which made the analogy to running very real to me as there are many times I am on my elliptical and have to push and strain to finish the goal that I have set for myself that day. I forget that our daily lives are the race that God has set us before us and that in order to keep going I need to view each day as I do my exercise time with purpose and perseverance in order to obtain the goal - in this case the perfection of my faith in Christ Jesus rather than losing that baby weight. Therefore, I need to constantly fix my eyes on Jesus and remember the goal for which I am persevering. If you don't have a goal, it makes it very hard to persevere. Although it can be hard to see any purpose or progress toward the goal in many of my daily activities, I look forward to one day being able to look back and see how God has brought me through the race that He set before me, especially these really rough times that take extreme effort to get through and it feels like you're not getting anywhere. The running analogy again comes in handy for me as this week I found a picture of myself last August and realized how all of those hours exercising have paid off as I have lost all of my baby weight since then and look drastically different even though most weeks I didn't see any drastic gain toward my goal. That is how it is with life too. You rarely see any drastic changes occurring overnight, but looking back, you can see how much God has changed you and how you are not the same person you were before. So now I pray that God would help me to fix my eyes on Jesus in order to persevere in the roughest and smallest of things so that in the end, I may be perfected by Christ Jesus and join my dad and the many others who have gone before me.