Endurance!

I'm stuck on this subject of "spiritual warfare".  It just seems the heat is incredible [and I'm not talking about the weather]and the frustrations are hard and many, and it is an effort to keep moving forward.

Spiritual warfare can be many things, and it can take on a lot of different forms. I look at it like a testing or as intense training.

I have ran a few marathons, and half marathons, and something I have learned along the way is this; the race, the actual marathon is not the hardest part. 
 It is the hours and sweat and soreness and dedication that give the endurance to run the race. If you don't put the training time in, you are likely to not make it through the race.  You may not even show up to the race you signed up for, or you could quit or get injured part way through. 

It is the tests and the training that makes us stronger and gives us endurance for the race ahead of us.

 The hard training days when nobody is with you or standing on the side of the road cheering for you that are the hardest.  The decision comes down to you and you alone if you are going to get out there and pound out another hard training run.  

God's Word describes our faith as running a race with endurance and I know there is no such thing as endurance without training, and LOTS of it. The harder and longer the race, the the more time and intensity you had better have trained in preparation.

So, as I have been feeling the struggles and strains of hard core training and testing of my faith and the faith of many around me. I rejoice, (or try to rejoice) because we are going to be fit and strong in our faith to run the race set before us, if we can keep our eyes on Jesus. 

Hebrews 12:1-2

Jesus, Founder and Perfecter of Our Faith

12 Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, 2 looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.

Here's the thing about a race.  
You can't just listen or read or visualize about how to train for it, you can't pay someone else to do it for you. The only way to gain endurance is to keep putting one foot in front of another again and again and again.  The only way you can have any help, is to run alongside another runner.

Psalm 66:8-12The Message (MSG)

8-12 Bless our God, O peoples!
    Give him a thunderous welcome!
Didn’t he set us on the road to life?
    Didn’t he keep us out of the ditch?
He trained us first,
    passed us like silver through refining fires,
Brought us into hardscrabble country,
    pushed us to our very limit,
Road-tested us inside and out,
    took us to hell and back;
Finally he brought us
    to this well-watered place.