Earlier this summer there was a quote that haunted me. In the 2008 movie The Dark Knight, Bruce Wayne asks his mentor, Alfred, a heavy question: “People are dying, Alfred. What would you have me do?” — “Endure, Master Wayne.” It’s such a powerful quote. I don’t know why it came to mind, and I don’t know why I was meditating on it, but the concept of endurance has been on my mind since. 

What is Endurance?

I recently endured through three and a half months of work. A dear friend invited to her wedding in Poland and I was not going to miss it. But, when I looked at my finances I realized I needed a second job. That meant that I had to work doubles multiple times a week. I would work at my job at a restaurant in the morning, I would clock out, I would drive to the next place, clock in, and I would continue with the second gig. 

This was the rhythm for three and half months, and it felt like it was so long! I could feel my soul slowly dying inside. Two jobs combined with writing (yes, writing is a chore, as much as it is a joy) felt like I had three jobs and no time to do anything fun. I felt like I couldn’t get enough rest, even when I was getting 7 or 8 hours of sleep per night. But I endured through it because I knew I had a trip coming, which meant, I could see the end.  

No one in their right mind ever thinks, “I’m going to sit for 11 hour straight”. Yet, every time that I fly to and from Europe, it’s like that. And I don’t like it, but I do it because I have to. I manage to endure that time sitting in a tight space because it’s the only way that I can get to my destination in a timely manner. 

Now, to wit, is it really endurance when one knows the end will come? Is it really enduring when there is a reward on the other side? 

I really don’t like the process of traveling. I like being in new places and seeing my friends, but the getting there and the getting back sucks. But then, at least I know where I am going to end up, and I know that those places are good. It is easier to endure through something when you can see the end. What really really sucks is when you can’t see the end. 

Going on an Adventure

I try to practice Sabbath once a week, and usually, on my Sabbath day, I give myself the task of not having anything that I have to do. That is the only thing that I have to do. And so I make a list of things that I could do, but that I don’t have to do. 

So I woke up one Thursday morning in July. It was my Sabbath, and it was a weekday, so I couldn’t really hang out with anybody. I moved my car out of the garage, and I put a foldable chair in the middle of the empty garage, and I sat on it while I drank my cup of coffee. I sat there meditating on life, when I felt the Holy Spirit say, “Go on an adventure.”

What the heck? I was gonna start painting and God said, “Go on an adventure.” What does that mean? I thought, if I was to go on an adventure, where would I go? It was about 9am at this point, so I had all morning. It was unusually cool for July, and I thought, “I’m gonna go trail running, but where?” And an area called Hobbs State Park in Rogers came to mind. I went inside, told my roommate where I was going and headed out.

There are multiple loops that I could have chosen, I picked one that I knew went along the shore of the lake. On the way out there, I passed a trail that I am familiar with and I saw two hot girls getting out of their car. Of course I thought, “I’m gonna turn around and stop right there, and that’s where I’m gonna go running.”  But a deeper voice said “No. That’s not what I’m out here for. I’m not out here for women. I’m out here for an adventure.” So, I kept going.

Sabbath To Endure

I had been to this trail years before, but I had done it on a mountain bike, not trail running, so I didn’t really remember the trail well. I got out of my car, I waited for my Garmin watch to link up with the GPS, and then I started running. My goal was only to go to the edge of the water and then back. I wasn’t sure how far I was gonna go, but I saw that it was an 8 mile loop. 

I was feeling good, but as I was running, about a mile in and there was no sign of the water, I thought, “What if the water is three miles in? At that point, I’m going to have three miles in and then three miles back. That’s six miles. Why don’t I just keep going and do eight? What if the water is four miles in? I might as well keep going and do the whole loop.”

Mind you, at this point, I had only slept about five hours the night before. I stayed up way too late because I had some coffee at around 7:30 pm because I went  to a creatives event where there was somebody selling coffee out of the back of their 1970’s Porsche 911, and I got seduced into having a delicious cold brew with vanilla cream on it. 

Anyway, I had also not had breakfast. The only breakfast I had had had been that latte that I sipped on while I meditated on life. There was strong doubt in me that I had what it takes to make it through the whole loop, but I had come all this way, and something brought me out here. So I made up my mind to complete the whole loop. 

A Sweet Reminder

Two miles in and I was feeling good. My body felt light. I felt strong, awake, and engaged. I kept going. Three miles came by, and BAM! There was the lake! I decided to stop and go for a swim. It was starting to get warm and I took a dive from one of the rocks. I got out and sat on the warm rocks to dry off. There was a boat parked in the cove. The people on it waved at me, and I waved back at them. I waited for my body to dry and then I put my shoes back on. 

But as soon as I stood up, my heart started beating faster. I started to feel shortness of breath. Suddenly, fear took over.  “What if I don’t make it?” I was scared that somehow my body would fail me while I was out there. I thought that maybe the swimming break had been a mistake. But I was still three miles out. I had to keep going. “Just go ahead and do it. Just finish out.” I thought. Right when I made up my mind, I felt God say, “I want you to know that you can endure.”

I started running even though the fear was still there. I kept going along the shore of the lake. The warm sunny day and the blue of the water were my comfort. Slowly, but surely, my mind started thinking about good things. My breathing eased up, the fear slowly went away, and then suddenly, I was back on track. I was moving smoothly. Until the lake went away, and I started going uphill. 

A Million Miles in a Thousand Years

It was those last few miles that were challenging. It wasn’t so much that I was tired, it was more that I was bored. I had left the lake behind and there were just trees around me. I was like, “Gosh. When is this going to end?” I wanted to quit, but I couldn’t. I had to keep going. It just so happened that the day before, I had reached the chapter in the book A Million Miles in a Thousand Years where Donald Miller talks about enduring. 

Donald Miller explains tells the story of a multi-day kayaking trip that he took with some friends. He writes that late one night they were going from one island to another. After hours of rowing, it felt like the shore they left behind didn’t seem to be getting any farther away, and that the shore that they were headed towards didn’t seem to be getting any closer. Then he explains that much of life is like this.

What are the odds that I would listen to that chapter about endurance, and then I would experience God pushing me towards endurance right the next day? I think God wanted me to do this trail that because he wanted to show me that I can do 8 miles on little sleep and little food, and even though I might not know where I am going. I think He wanted to show me that all I have to do is to just keep on the road where I was.

So much of life feels this way. It might be that things aren’t necessarily difficult, but things get boring. Things stop being exciting. You’re no longer there because you want to be. Now you’re there because you have to. You’re there because going back would be worse, but going forward, just seems kind of monotonous. It’s just you and the trail. There’s no food, no water, no pretty lake to look at. You just gotta keep going. At least for me, though, I knew that, eventually, the trail was going to end. 

Cheer for the Winner and No One Else 

Endurance is such an inspirational thing. We love to watch other people endure things. In endurance sports only the people who finish first get rewarded. Everybody else doesn’t. Unless it’s a turkey trot where everybody gets a medal. But nobody rewards you for training. Nobody rewards you for getting up early in the morning. Nobody rewards you for all the work that you’ve done in secret. 

People don’t reward people for enduring anything. When someone beats cancer, they get to ring a bell. Great. But the reward is that they get to stay alive. When someone endures through a miscarriage, nobody rewards them for that. It’s not like that person, or that family, is guaranteed a child to replace the one they just lost. Nobody rewards you for being a parent either. 

When girls reject you, other girls are not more attracted to you because you’ve endured being rejected by other girls. When someone has endured a hard life, a difficult upbringing, a life with a chronic disease, a divorce, the loss of someone in their family, or even a mental illness, there isn’t anyone to reward them for that. It’s just part of life and it’s just what people have to deal with. And those things are the hardest to endure because there is no end in sight. We don’t know when enduring through those things will end. 

Enduring The Difficult Things

When I was a child I had to endure having migraines. That was a pain for two years. Then there was going through college. Save for my time at Camp War Eagle I really didn’t enjoy my college experience. More recently I had to endure figuring out how to build an app. And once I had to endure sitting through the movie Australia in the theater because I paid for the dang ticket. But I never considered these things heroic or cheer worthy. Nothing that made me feel like “Wow! I made it through!”

Part of me thinks that makes me weak. For so much of my life I’ve felt that I don’t have what it takes. It’s a constant fear. The feeling of not being enough or not having enough, and lately that fear has manifested itself like this: “What if I am too weak to endure this?”

The thing is, I have endured through hard things. In 2021 I entered a period of 4 years of depression. That was truly horrible. The sensation of being out in the middle of a lake, far from the shore, calling for help, and no one coming to save me was never ending. There was a constant fear. I felt weak and I didn’t know if I could make it. 

Then in 2025 I endured through 9 days of bronchitis. As menial as that might seem, it was a horrible experience that exposed how truly weak my faith foundation was and it sent me in a faith crisis that I never thought I would have to go through. That was emotionally very difficult. Both of those things seemed like they had no end, but eventually they did end. I made it through and I came out on the other side with a much stronger and much better perspective about life and about faith. 

The Right Perspective to Endure

It’s weird how even though one has faced difficult things, when a new difficult thing comes up it feels totally scary. Somehow the previous experience doesn’t always transfer into confidence for the next scary thing we have to face. But sometimes, the scariest thing is simply enduring. Simply to keep going. If you want to get to the next exciting thing, you have to keep going. You have to get through the boring. You have to get through the monotonous. And that is true of everything in life. 

Part of GoodGoodDay is having the right perspective. Part of having a GoodGoodDay is knowing how to endure. Enduring is part of life. We will have to endure through difficult things. We will have to go through monotony. That is guaranteed. And, another thing that is guaranteed about all monotonous and difficult things in life is that they come to an end. Everything has an end in this life, even life itself. 

This is just an introduction to my thoughts on enduring. There is much more that I want to explore here, but for right now I think God has been pushing me in this direction either to show me that I do have what it takes, or to prepare me for something that maybe is coming. And, I think, He wanted this post to be a reminder for you, also.

I think He wants to show you that you have what it takes for whatever it is that you are pursuing. All you have to do is just keep on the road where you are. Just keep on the place where you are, and you will eventually get there. 

• P.S. Last week marked 6 months since I started writing one blog post per week. My goal is to make one post a week for a year. I so wish I had more time to truly flesh out what I want to say and to make each of these posts more beautiful, meaningful, and valuable to you, but right now the goal is to finish. It is most definitely a challenge, but at least I can see the end. 
• P.P.S. I truly believe everyone in the West who considers themselves a Christian should read Donald Miller’s book A Million Miles in a Thousand Years. It’s a phenomenal book on perspective. 

I hope this story is encouraging to you. If you know somebody that you think this might be encouraging to as well, go ahead and share it with them!