The Long Haul

“If you are going through hell, keep going.” ― Winston S. Churchill

A bunch of our Bridge brothers and sisters are feeling that now. And I’m not just talking about the marathon they are running. Some of you are facing major upheaval in your life. We have recent widows and widowers. We have heartbreaking situations with kids. There’s job loss and financial collapse. The wife who just told you she’s done. Alzheimer’s diagnosis…or cancer.

So, what are you going to do? Let discouragement overwhelm? Climb into ourselves and quit emotionally? Let down our guard in the household and let chaos take over?

Or will you see this through? Because winning is not about playing well in the first half. It’s about finishing well through a hard-fought fourth quarter.

I wrote this in the back of my Bible as a young seminary student after hearing it from a chapel speaker: “The test of a man’s character is what it takes to stop him.”

Do you have what it takes to make it through this affliction over the long haul?

That’s where exhilaration comes from for those who’ll be finishing the marathon. If it were easy, everyone would do it. But it’s worth doing because it’s so hard. And when you’re at mile 21 and there’s 5+ more to go, you know how hard it is. Feeling-like-quitting hard. Not just feeling like quitting…but wondering if you can go on!

It was one thing when the challenge was new. Everyone is excited at the beginning of a marathon. But then comes the time you have to put your head down and just keep going….when you feel like you don’t have the energy to persevere. Because trials last longer than we think they will. It takes extra fortitude to build resolve to honor God all the way through—during financial hardships, relationship crises, times of anger over situations, or just depletion of emotional strength.

But you can do it. The promise we have from Jesus is that He will be with us always, even to the end of the world. And I love this promise that God gave to His people in the Old Testament:

“Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine. When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you; when you walk through fire you shall not be burned, and the flame shall not consume you. For I am the LORD your God” (Isaiah 43:1-3 ESV).