Do not run like someone running aimlessly.
—1 Corinthians 9:26
Carl Lewis won four gold medals in the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles.
He was confident that his first leap had been good enough to win the gold in the long jump. Odds were in his favor of setting a new world record with a second jump, but Carl chose to conserve his strength for other events rather than jumping again.
He said his goal was to win gold medals, not to set records that wouldn’t last long.
Setting records—or winning gold medals—isn’t eternally important.
But the race you’re running is.
Those who compete in the Games “do it to get a crown that will not last; but we do it to get a crown that will last forever” (1 Cor 9:25).
The only fatal failure is to
quit before the race is finished.