For a change of pace, let me share a spiritual experience I had in college.

I did my undergraduate studies at West Point. One year, I participated in intramural cross-country. They figured that would be a good sport for me since it required no skill. I just had to start at the starting line and put one foot in front of the other until I reached the finish line. They thought I could handle that. Of course, the skill required to be actually good at the sport is speed, and that usually left me somewhere in the middle of the pack, and sometimes farther back than that.

However, we had some substantially more talented people on the squad that year, which resulted in our winning the championship for the Second Regiment. At that time, the Corps of Cadets consisted of two regiments. This meant that we would run against the First Regiment for the Brigade championship.

The cross-country course ended on a long hill—no doubt the design of some sadistic mind or some staff person who thought that this arrangement would build character. As I approached that hill during the championship race, I was occupying my usual spot around the middle of the pack.

About that time our coach, Tom Finley, appeared along the side of the road and yelled to me that if I would pass the two runners in front of me from the other team, we would win the championship—the awful implication being that if I didn’t, we would lose. How could it be that the brigade championship came to rest on the shoulders of some guy in the middle of the pack? Nonetheless, as I looked at that long hill and those two guys about ten yards ahead of me, and sensed that I was about at the limits of my endurance, that is the situation in which I found myself.

It was at that moment that the Lord brought to mind Isaiah 40:31, “But they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength. They shall mount up with wings like eagles. They shall run and not be weary. They shall walk and not faint.”

As I reflected on that truth, I sensed that I was being energized by a power that was not my own. I found myself catching up to the two men I had to beat. I tried to get past them, but they blocked my path. I discovered that I had enough energy to run around them. As I continued up the hill, I sensed them putting on speed in an attempt to catch up, but that newfound power enabled me to stay ahead of them until I crossed the finish line.

I didn’t set any records that day, or any other day for that matter, but I did learn that God keeps His Word in very literal ways, that it is possible through the power of God even at the end of a tough race on a long hill to run and not be weary. That lesson has been a source of faith and strength on many occasions since.