My Eyes Are FixedSample

When we suffer it can be all-consuming. It can sap all your strength and keep you in a prison of pain. But I’m pressing through my pain. I am confident that what lies ahead is so much better than anything I’ve ever known. My eyes are fixed on one thing. My Savior waits for me to finish my race. And that is inexpressible joy!

Hebrews 12 follows the chapter that has been called the Hall of Faith. The writer calls the roll of saints who have gone before us and who now make up the grand audience who cheer us on. They are described as those who: “were tortured, refusing to be released so that they might gain an even better resurrection. Some faced jeers and flogging, and even chains and imprisonment. They were put to death by stoning; they were sawed in two; they were killed by the sword. They went about in sheepskins and goatskins, destitute, persecuted and mistreated—the world was not worthy of them. They wandered in deserts and mountains, living in caves and in holes in the ground” (Heb. 11:35b–38). Their triumph over the pain of this life says to us, “Go on! Keep running! You can make it! You can make it!”

In the ancient Olympic games, the track was an oval or an ellipse, so the beginning point was also the goal. It’s interesting that the writer of Hebrews would use this picture to illustrate our faith. It is a perfect picture because Jesus is our beginning and He is our ending. We start our journey of faith resting in the truth that He is who the Bible says He is. “Being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus” (Phil. 1:6). And we end trusting that it is all true and it will all carry us into eternity. The word used for author is archegos, which means pioneer. He has already gone before us and shown us the way. He has marked out our territory. He set the limits on how Satan could test me, just like He did with Job. He has set the limits on how Satan can test you too. I trust Him. And I rejoice that He counted me worthy to endure the things I have experienced.