April 28, 2023

Hey Centennial,

There is a concept that has been significant in my spiritual journey. Namely,

Training is more valuable than trying.

I first stumbled across this idea in college while reading Richard Foster’s book, The Celebration of Discipline. He uses the illustration of running a marathon (maybe that’s why the idea stuck with me so long 😊). If you set out to run 26.2 miles, there will come a moment when you can try as hard as you like to keep running and it won’t make any difference. Your body will simply stop and say, “No, I will not keep running.”

Unless you have trained it to run that far.

Life is not a sprint, especially not the life race called faith. It is a marathon.

This Sunday, we are going to look at this idea more closely as we consider a related idea,

God has given you a training plan to follow in your life of faith.

If you know what it is like to “hit the wall” in life and feel like you just can’t keep going, I pray that our study of Hebrews chapter 12 will give you renewed strength to keep going forward in faith, even when life’s challenges feel overwhelming.

Grace and peace,