Faith for the Middle

Did you know that when serious runners train for a race, they train for the middle? Understandably, the middle of any race is the hardest part. It’s where a runner begins to run out of energy, strength, and the mental focus to keep going. Whether he or she is a sprinter or a distance runner, if they don’t make it through the middle, they won’t make it across the finish line. It sounds so simple, but it requires strategic training to succeed.

From a spiritual perspective, isn’t the middle what we’re in training for much of our lives? Think of it this way: we’re born one day, spiritually speaking, and then we begin this race, which is our journey in Christ on this earth, all in hopes of crossing the finish line some day and hearing that we did a good job with the race we ran.1 That might be an oversimplification, but it sums up our lives really well, doesn’t it?

Someday, when I finish my race, I want to be able to say like the apostle Paul, “I fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith” (2 Timothy 4:7), but to do that, I first have to get through the middle.

To get through the middle—of everything—you will need endurance. The writer of Hebrews wrote, “For you have need of endurance, so that when you have done the will of God you may receive what is promised” (Hebrews 10:36, ESV).

Endurance is formally defined as “the ability or strength to continue despite fatigue, stress or adverse conditions.”2 It’s the capacity to bear up under difficult circumstances. The power to withstand pain or hardships. It’s a hopeful fortitude that perseveres to the end. In the original Greek language of the New Testament, it is hupomone, a compound word that translates “to remain under.”3 It is a quality built by remaining under pressure—something our natural inclination wants to run away from—and it seems to hit us the hardest in the middle.

In the middle of our friendships.

In the middle of our dating relationships.

In the middle of our marriages.

In the middle of our parenting.

In the middle of our education.

In the middle of building our careers.

In the middle of an illness.

In the middle of a court case.

In the middle of a pandemic.

In the middle of a transition.

In the middle of something we’re hoping praying will happen.

In the middle of waiting on answers.

In the middle of anything is where it’s the most tedious, the most difficult, and utterly wearisome. It’s where we’re most challenged, isn’t it? It’s where all we want to do is quit.

But if we will build endurance, that strength the writer of Hebrews told us we would need, if we will train ourselves from the Word of God, and by the power of the Holy Spirit, then we will have the wherewithal to make it through the middle. And not just one middle, but every middle that we will ever live through.

Prayer

Heavenly Father, please help us endure well as we go through the middle of everything we will ever go through. Help us run our race well, so that when we have done the will of God, we will receive what was promised. In Jesus’ name, amen.

References:
1. Hebrews 10:36, ESV
2. Merriam-Webster, s.v. “endurance,” https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/endurance.
3. J. Strong, A Concise Dictionary of the Words in the Greek Testament and the Hebrew Bible (Bellingham, WA: Logos Bible Software, 2009), 1:74.