RUN LIKE A CHAMPION

I don’t know if you’ve ever had a best friend. I once had a best friend named Ken. We hit it off from the first time we met. He was a defense attorney for the military, and we often joked with one another. I’d say to him, “I was going to be a lawyer until I got right with God.” Ken would shoot back, “That’s all right, Sammy. I was going into the ministry before I became a Christian.”
Ken and I were jogging partners, but he was in much better shape. We would often climb one very difficult hill. I nicknamed it “Difficulty” because of how hard it was to run up. Ken would always make it to the top long before me. As I would be struggling up the hill, Ken would yell out in true military fashion, “Up the hill, over the hill, through the hill, conquer the hill. Come on, Sammy, you can do it.”
Ken was a dreamer, a planner like me. We’d dream together about reaching the world for Christ. We dreamed about the very things I’m doing today.
Then one day I received a phone call from another friend. He said, “Sammy, sit down. There’s something I have to tell you. Ken has just been killed in an automobile accident.”
I couldn’t believe it. Ken was so young, so strong. He had so much potential, so much to give. His wife, Lyn, asked me to preach the funeral. I didn’t know what to say to his dear, godly wife and four beautiful daughters. As I prayed, I remembered the hill called “Difficulty.” It was almost as though I could hear Ken calling from heaven, “I know I’ve already made it to the top. I know I’ve left you a tough hill to climb, but you can do it. Up the hill, over the hill, through the hill, conquer the hill. Come on, you can do it.”
His four young daughters stood to sing at their father’s funeral. They sang with tears streaming down their faces, “Our God Reigns, Our God Reigns.”
I don’t have the answers to Ken’s death. I don’t understand why God let Ken be taken from this earth in the prime of his life. But I’ve come to understand this great truth sung by Ken’s daughters: “Our God Reigns.”
He is Sovereign. That doesn’t mean we are exempt from the hurts of life, but it does mean we can be more than conquerors of that hill called “Difficulty.” Remember the Bible says, “We are more than conquerors through him who loved us” (Romans 8:37 esv).
Up the hill, over the hill, through the hill, conquer the hill. Come on, you can do it.