HASTINGS, NEB. — Have you ever run an obstacle course? Midway through the event your muscles ache, perspiration drips from your brow and your lungs beg for oxygen. With your heart mimicking a bass drum, you hope and pray a paramedic is waiting at the finish line.

The urge to quit is strong. Your mind says, Give up. You’ve had enough. The obstacles are too difficult.

But somehow you muster the will and strength to press on across the monkey bars, through the tires and over the 12-foot wall. Exhausted, yet fulfilled, you break the tape at the finish line.

Today your life may seem like an obstacle course, with one challenge chasing another: combative relationships, health problems, insufficient finances and more. You feel like you’ve already hit the midway point and you can’t go on. The emotional pain is almost unbearable. Daily your voice turns toward heaven: "God, people have let me down and my strength is waning. Can I quit? Can I pass the baton to someone else?"

But the Lord responds to your heart, Persist. Persevere. I will be your strength. Lean on Me. I will help you complete the test, and I will be waiting for you at the finish line.

Regardless of the obstacles other people may have put in your path — biting words, betrayal, unfair criticism, ingratitude, dishonesty, selfishness, jealousy and more — with God’s help you can press on. Like David, in Psalm 18:29, you can say, "With your help I can advance against a troop; with my God I can scale a wall" (NIV).

Everyone faces obstacles in life. Some choose to run from them; others rely on the Spirit to run through them. They know what it’s like to break the tape and fall into the waiting arms of their Lord and Savior.

— Hal Donaldson