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| The starting gun has
sounded! Students have left the starting blocks, and
adults have begun the challenge of resetting a
practical routine that will take them through
Christmas, hopefully. But, can we do it without
messing up? Here is a word to the wise- take time to
pause long enough to identify your core values of
life - those things you care about more than
anything else. Then shape your time schedule by
eliminating all the tempting, unnecessary
opportunities that will distract you from what you
consider to be the most important. | |
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Will
you fall on occasion? Most likely. but, here's a
story that can coach you through those moments. | | |
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"The
Courage to Continue" | |
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He wasn't well known outside
of Finland. He wasn't even considered to be
among the top fifteen runners in the world
in his event. But Lasse Viren had trained
hard, and he believed he could win the
10,000 meter race at the 1972 Olympics in
Munich. |
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The seventy-five contestants
had only run two and half laps when one of
the favorites collided with another runner
and was thrown off the track. As he fell, he
knocked Lasse to the track, head over heels.
Lasse jumped to his feet and started running
again, determined to catch up with the pack.
Little by little, Lasse gained ground. And
to everyone's amazement, he crossed the
finish line first and set an Olympic record. | |
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Afterward, he summed up the
race with the comment, "I found out I could
be knocked down and still win." Lasse Viren
is an inspiration in Finland today because
he had the courage to get up, after he had
been knocked down. | |
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Some of us have been knocked
down by the rejection of a spouse, child or
parent. Others have been knocked down by
news of a terminal illness or the unexpected
and sudden loss of a job. Still others of us
have been knocked off the track after
yielding to temptation. We can easily
identify with this runner. It's painful to
be knocked down, and very inconvenient. Our
plans don't call for such unwelcome
interruptions. | |
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So, what must we do? We need
to draw courage from the Lord, just like
Paul did at Lystra. After stoning and
dragging him outside the city, his enemies
left him for dead. And to the surprise of
many, but not of those who knew him well, he
got up, went to the next town, and kept
preaching. | |
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He had the courage to
continue! Later he wrote to his friends to
encourage them. "We are pressed on every
side by troubles, but not crushed and
broken. We are perplexed because we don't
know why things happen as they do, but we
don't give up and quit. We are hunted down,
but God never abandons us. We get knocked
down, but we get up again and keep going."
"Everyone can see," he reminded them, "that
the glorious power within must be from God
and is not our own."
- 2 Corinthians 4:8,9 and 7b | |
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| The Finnish fellow finished
first! But that's not the most important thing. What
is most important is that he got up and kept
running. Falls are only fatal when we give up! |
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