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There is a finish line ahead, and not everyone who starts the race runs all the way to it. Gideon started well but stumbled. Solomon began with great devotion and drifted into idolatry. Demas walked with Paul and then quietly turned back, having loved this present world more than the world to come. These are sobering reminders, but they are not meant to discourage us. They are meant to make us wise. The race asks us to fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, and to keep eternity in view. Heaven is more beautiful than anything we have imagined, and the suffering of this present life is not even worthy to be compared with the glory that is coming.
Finishing well also means staying connected to the vine. Jesus himself, fully God and fully man, went off alone to pray to the Father again and again. If he needed that connection, we certainly do. We are to abide in Christ, welcome his discipline when we stray, and run the race together in close brotherhood. We are called to look out for one another, to lift up the drooping hands and strengthen the feeble knees, and to reach toward those who are struggling before it is too late. Now is the time to make straight paths. Now is the time to run, and to run all the way to the end.