A variety of clean videos including: Inspirational, informational, Christian, humorous and videos made by Gracepoint

To Finish the Race: John Stephens Akhwari

This is a video of John Stephens Akhwari, an marathon runner who represented Tanzania in the 1968 Summer Olympic Games in Mexico City. In the middle of the marathon, he fell and seriously injured himself. However, with his knee badly cut and the joint dislocated, he chose to continue running after his wound was bandaged up. More than an hour after the winner of the event had been declared, John Stephens Akhwari hobbled into the stadium, to the cheers of the audience who remained there. Later, when a reporter asked him why he continued to run even though he did not even have a remote chance of winning, John Stephens Akhwari replied:

My country did not send me to Mexico City to start the race. They sent me to finish.

His sentiment is truly admirable, as he saw himself as part of something much larger than just his personal winning and losing, and endured to finished the race in the end. Recently here at Gracepoint Fellowship Church, we went through 2 Timothy 4 for our daily devotions, in which Apostle Paul testifies that “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.”

In other parts of the Bible, we see living the Christian life being compared to a race (1 Corinthians 9:24-27), and we are called to “run with perseverance the race marked out for us” (Hebrews 12:1). There will be ups and downs, times when we’re barely putting one foot in front of the other and when we’re tempted to give up. But ultimately it’s about us enduring to the end until we cross the finish line, as echoed in the words of John Stephen Akhwari here.

In her sharing from 2 Timothy 4 on pressing on in Christian life, Kelly Kang, who leads Gracepoint Berkeley along with her husband Pastor Ed Kang, shared:

I’m reminded that as I get older, there is a strong pull toward slowing down, thinking that what I’ve done is enough or that I don’t need to grow any more. But that is such a lie. The older I get, I need to be more loving, more zealous, more passionate, more sacrificial, pray more, spend more time in God’s Word… Why? Because as I get older, spiritual liabilities increase.

Here are some more sharing on 2 Timothy from various members at Gracepoint.

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This entry was posted on Monday, August 10th, 2009 at 5:50 pm and is filed under Christian and Inspirational Videos and tagged with , . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.

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