Sir Roger Bannister, the first man to break the elusive four-minute-mile barrier, once said, "The man who can drive himself further once the effort gets painful is the man who will win."

No challenge in life is easy or else it wouldn’t be a challenge! The fact is that running the race of the Christian life is a big challenge. Sometimes it hurts and we have to get used to that. The painful times are the times when we most need to fall back on our earlier preparation and training to get us through.

I have discovered that if we are going to run our race and finish our course, we are going to have to keep pressing beyond what is comfortable. Isaiah 54:2 says, “Enlarge the place of your tent, and let them stretch out the curtains of your dwellings. Do not spare; lengthen your cords and strengthen your stakes.”

In this passage God is saying to us, "I cannot fit what I want to do in your life in the space that you have. You are not thinking, believing, imagining, or dreaming big enough! I need you to get bigger so that I can do what I want to do through you." The four words that God then uses to describe how this "getting bigger" will happen imply anything but comfort. These words are enlarge, stretch, lengthen, and strengthen. Every one of these involves growth, pain, and discomfort, but it is worth the effort.

Every runner who is committed to a long-distance race knows that that race will involve pain and discomfort. Runners endure the pain for the thrill of winning, of crossing the finish line having completed the course. Peter Maher, an Olympic sub 2:12 marathon runner said, "Running is a big question mark that’s there each and every day. It asks you, ‘Are you going to be a wimp or are you going to be strong today?'" Life asks us the same question regarding our spiritual race: are we going to quit for the sake of avoiding a bit of pain and discomfort, or will we press through to the end? Make a choice and move forward!