I’ve never been good at running.

I was always last to run the mile in gym class.

Even when I joined my elementary school’s soccer team, I was more interested in picking flowers than playing soccer.

So, when faith is referred to as the running of a race, I get a little jittery. But, when it comes to faith, just as in running, there will be times when you feel like you’re on top of the world and times when it’s all you can do to keep going.

The important thing is to keep pressing forward, no matter how hard it gets. Just like in a race, there’s a prize waiting at the end: a crown of righteousness. Eternal life with Jesus.

In our race of faith, God is with us through the toughest of times, the blackest nights, the steepest hills.

“In all this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. These have come so that the proven genuineness of your faith — of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire — may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed” (1 Peter 1:6-7).

So hold on. Keep running. Keep the faith. We’re almost home.