Triathlons and Races

Yummers.

Do you not know that in a race all the runners compete, but only one receives the prize? So run that you may obtain it. Every athlete exercises self-control in all things. They do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable. So I do not run aimlessly; I do not box as one beating the air. But I discipline my body and keep it under control, lest after preaching to others I myself should be disqualified. (1 Corinthians 9:24-27)

Training for the vastly more wimpy OSIM Singapore International Triathlon already entails at least: training plans, training logs, route-familiarisation, progressive pacing, monitoring heart rates, weight-training, building endurance, warming-up, cooling-down, breathable attire, running shoes, right underwear, chaffing, correcting swimming technique, swim caps, goggles, building muscle, aerobic/anaerobic, timing work-outs, intervals, drills, recovery, maintenance, peaking, bike frames, cranks, bars, tubes, helmets, bike shoes, nutrition, energy packs, hydration devices, mounting techniques, riding tactics, staying aerodynamic, transitioning...

What more the Aviva Ironman?

What more the race for that most precious eternal prize?

John Piper: Desiring God or Desiring Desire?

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1. Watching Volver, at midnight, with the whole theatre to ourselves, meant we could put our feet up on the row in front without kicking the backs of people's heads and chatter all the way through with such inane comments like "Eeeee. Pedro Almodovar is so humsup" (even though he's professedly gay) and "If Raimunda's mom is a ghost, why can't she just appear in Madrid instead of being stuck in a car boot?", and also, "Is Sole a very bad actress or is she just meant to portray awkwardness?" and then, towards the end of the show, "Eh. Why is there a man in white standing behind us?"

2. Completely cool geek t-shirt spotted after service. Ultimate was ultimately scuttled by rain, but some painting, baking (edible) cookies to use up soon-to-expire stuff and giving the old piano ivories a bit of a run wasn't half bad. Thank God for pottering.

3. Finally. A dry evening! Not time enough, though, for a Singapore Biathlon pitch. Time, however, collapsed and compressed, for a half-hour run round the Singapore Botanic Gardens before dinner. Nifty Nike Frees, fresh air, fecundity of flora and fauna, Lesser Whistling Ducks ducking. The next evening: underwater hockey scuttled by thunder and lightning. Sub-aqua ice hockey soon perhaps? Singapore Ironman 70.3 Triathlon in September 2007. Pwnage.

4. At the Gingers': crowding round some good curry, tandoori and prata and tossing about really bad jokes:

"Would you prefer prata or naan?"
"Ah, the naan that begot Joshua?"
"..."
"You know, Joshua - son of Nunn?"
"........"

We had a listen to a scrap of their impressive collection of John Piper's sermons and a good chat about his Christian Hedonism.

*Off-the-cuff Stuff*

Even without toe-dipping into discussions about classical philosophical definitions of the term "hedonism", it appears slightly worrying that Piper has built his whole ministry around this idea of Christian Hedonism.

The gist of Mr. Piper's argument seems to be:
Premise I: Obligation of a human is to seek one's own pleasure.
Premise II: The greatest pleasure is to be found in God.
Conclusion: Therefore, obligation of a human is to find pleasure in God.

While the conclusion may seem biblical:
1. Syllogisms can sometimes be used invalidly, eg:
Premise I: God is love.
Premise II: Love is blind.
Premise III: Stevie Wonder is blind.
Conclusion: Therefore, Stevie Wonder is God.

2. In Piper's case, the fundamental premise itself is fallacious: the primary obligation of a human is not the seeking of our own pleasure or the fulfilment of our desires. It is to seek God and his pleasures and desires.

3. Just because God has designed us to find greatest pleasure and satisfaction in the worship of him does not mean that we should conflate the two. Our motivation for worshipping God is not to the end of gaining self-centred pleasure but for God himself: because of who he is, his all-encompassing power, authority, compassion, mercy and love etc. Our pleasure is not God; only God is God.

Remembrance of Things Past and The Way Forward

Apologies to Proust and Ford and people who don't like long rambly posts.

Out in the nave, the murmurings crescendo-ed, soaring up to the stone vaulted canopy of our English cathedral. The burgeoning audience arrived anticipating a performance of Handel's Ombra Mai Fu. But away from the crowd, a great chill froze my heart in the quiet transept: my trembling hands held the neck of my violin, broken off horrendously, the edges of the fragmented parts like sharpened stakes; irreparable damage to a friend's Strad. In the midst of a nightmare conscious that it was a nightmare, I waited for the sharp sunny edge of reality to cut through the greyness, I willed it to spike through so I could stumble, blurryeyed, to check on the violins in storage. Back in this world, latches were hastily flicked and dusty cases flung open to reveal that the neck of the Chinese one had indeed come off horribly (suffice to say that I popped into Gramercy and everyone took one look at the remains and laughed) from humidity and disuse. But I never liked it anyway. (The more favoured Czech was still quite alright.)

England
Dreams of England are rare these days, which makes waking life much less painful (and also I suppose, waking life now rests in Christ). But years before, happy nights were spent in smelly old Barbours, strolling the familiar shiny wet cobblestoned streets, trailing steamy breath, chatting and noshing on hot pasty, visiting as we always did the grocer's for brown bags of shiny apples, the baker's to ask after his lovely macarons and the quaint tilted bookstore with dusty Bach scores in the back to have a browse and a quick word with the old lady who ran it. Sometimes, it'd be summer and the air would be delicately warm for long hikes across the moors or punting in the sweet river or lazy games of crocker on the lawn and scones, clotted cream, pots of jam and cups of tea after. It took us at least a year to ease off the crushing yearning, though we still felt as Rupert Brooke (though not quite in the same context): "there's some corner of a foreign field that is forever England". (Am glad that someone else on the blogosphere still dreams of England as well!)

Perhaps it was the casual gift of Galaxy bars "to remind you of England", perhaps it was someone wanting to return to England where you could play games and have a barbie in the open without conspicious sweat and being surrounded by a cloud of mozzies, perhaps it was the offer of Müller Corners, perhaps it was the Toad in the Hole and the Spotted Dick, perhaps it was the revisiting of old haunts that stirred and churned the memory...

Old Haunts

Tiong Bahru: The Art Deco and rounded stairwells and ventilation holes replicated in the "upgraded" hawker centre. Brilliant.

People's Park: BestFriend and I used to accompany his girlfriend, a sometime model and fulltime LaSalle student, here to gather haberdashery, sequins, buttons, trimmings, assorted odds and ends for her fashion design course. Years after, latenight postgrad dinners were spent in the cheap hawker center downstairs in a cloud of cigarette smoke, debating the finer points of some obscure part of the course (as only postgrads do) over long meals of cze char. And still after, nice folks from CYC brought me here to select fabric for work shirts. Now refurbished, the mangy cats and singletwearing pipesmoking oldmen have been relegated to the sidelines.

Ghim Moh: Whole generations of junior college students have been fuelled by, and have pontang-ed from lessons to paktor over, the char kway teow, prawn mee and roasted duck here.

Even the Holland Village cobbler has moved on.

Old Friends and Acquaintances
Refurbished old haunts aside, it's been a nostalgic sort of month in other ways: heart-pounding chance meetings with former stalkers, impromptu but inevitable reunions at weddings, almost-forgotten friends popping by Singapore for a visit and pleasantly-surprising long-distance calls from voices from the past...

The thing about meeting people from your past is that you see, reflected in their comments and questions, younger images of yourself ossified at separate fossil layers, stratified in history. And, whether as a symptom of a relationship-obsessed society or because nonbelievers haven't much more to be interested in, the comments and queries inevitably focus on marital status and whom one is seeing at the moment (regardless of marital status), for example: primaryschoolmates think you are still that "self-sufficient kooky genius" and so must never have gone on a date; secondaryschoolmates think you're the uncommitted easilybored cheeky joker who must have married one of your secondary school sweethearts and seen somepeople on the side; juniorcollegemates are shocked that you and stable RuggedOutdoorsyPerson could ever have broken up; universitymates tell you that they've just got their own pad and a cockerspaniel and ask if you will leave hot and stinky Singapore and come and live with them and work things out; postgraduatemates tell you that they've seen AmbitiousHighFlyer in the media the other day and ask if you would both go over for dinner next weekend or a different group assumes that as soon as AmbitiousHighFlyer II returns from Hong Kong, the blacktie wedding invites will arrive in their mailboxes in due course and offer to do the harpsicord and viola at the reception. As the dimwitted tout whispered,"See I sell you cheap Mr. Mozart's skull when 'ee was 5. Eef you want, I have also 'ees skull when 'ee was 10 and 18". A very outofbody experience.

Driving home after, it is late and vehicular and human traffic and red lights are scarce, so it is easy to steer with one hand and prop your head up with the other and view the past through rose-tinted glasses and wonder how different things would have turned out, if only, at the appropriate fork in the road, different decisions had been taken. Later, still under cover of night, lying under the stars, it is too easy to dwell on regrets, to wallow in self-recriminations and to mourn a time long past.

What does God tell us to do with history?

Godly Remembering
There are many instances in the Bible where God commanded his people to remember history: particularly, what God had done in history. One major example is the Exodus event. The Israelites were to remember the day that they were brought out of Egypt, out of the house of slavery, and the strong hand the LORD who brought them out from that place (Exodus 13:3). Remembering their past was so important that God instructed the Israelites to incorporate mnemonic devices in their lives: the eating of unleavened bread should be to them as a sign on their hand and as a memorial between their eyes, that the law of the LORD may be in their mouth. For with a strong hand the LORD brought them out of Egypt (Exodus 13); the keeping of the Sabbath should remind them that they were slaves in the land of Egypt, and that the LORD their God brought them out from there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm (Deuteronomy 5:15).

These practices were also to function as methods of transmitting these corporate memories, this national history, from one generation to the next: "no leaven shall be seen with you in all your territory. You shall tell your son on that day,'It is because of what the LORD did for me when I came out of Egypt.'" (Exodus 13:7-8).

Why was remembering of such importance?

For Relationship
The works of God in the past, and his character shown through those works, told his people who he was, how they should relate to him and what to expect of him. So, for example, they were not to fear other nations they were to dispossess no matter how great they looked, because they were to remember what the LORD their God had done to Pharaoh and to all Egypt, the great trials that their eyes saw, the signs, the wonders, the mighty hand, and the outstretched arm, by which the LORD their God had brought them out. So would the LORD their God do to all the peoples of whom they were afraid (Deuteronomy 7:17-18). The people would know how to relate to God and what to expect of him: trustworthiness and faithfulness, backed up by awesome power. That's how relationships work out: products of a history of interactions and revelations and dealings with each other over a period of time given the parties thereto a pattern within which to relate. (Which is why, conversely, it is difficult to have any sort of relationship with someone with the retentive memory of a goldfish (urbanlegendly, 3 seconds).)

For Survival
Remembering past events is also how we learn to interact with the world and survive in it. Someone who gets zapped once by a wet socket is likely to end his days in a great sizzle if he doesn't remember that wet sockets are dangerous things to touch. So also remembering whom God was and his awful judgement on those who did not obey him was important for the Israelites if they wanted to live: warns Moses,"if you forget the LORD your God and go after other gods and serve them and worship them, I solemnly warn you today that you shall surely perish. Like the nations that the LORD makes to perish before you, so shall you perish, because you would not obey the voice of the LORD your God" (Deuteronomy 8:19-20).

For Living in the Present and in the Future
Remember, says Paul to the Ephesians, "that you were at that time separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ" (Ephesians 2:12-13). And if this is so, then they are to live, Jews and Gentiles, as one people in Christ.

So it is right, and it is commanded, that we remember the work of God in the history of the world and in our personal histories, for such memories tell us who he is and how to relate to him now. We learn from the punishment of the disobedient in the past to know how to live now. We learn from the faithfulness of God in the past to know for sure that he will fulfil his promises in the future.

Sinful Nostalgia
But there is a certain sort of (selective) remembering, a certain type of nostalgia that God warns us against: that which falsifies the past, that tells half-truths about history.

So the Israelites, very quickly forgetting the terrible slavery that they experienced in Egypt grumbled on route to the Promised Land: "Oh that we had meat to eat! We remember the fish we ate in Egypt that cost nothing, the cucumbers, the melons, the leeks, the onions, and the garlic. But now our strength is dried up, and there is nothing at all but this manna to look at" (Numbers 11:4-6).

So we are sometimes tempted to think how good the days were before we were converted to Christianity: the lovely freedom to do whatever we wanted, to marry and divorce anyone we chose, to cheat and steal if we wanted, to lie on a whim, to spend our money completely on ourselves. But we forget, dangerously, that in that state, we were dead in our transgressions, we were slaves to Satan, we were on the way to an eternity of dreadful crying and gnashing of teeth. And we can be sure that the anger of the LORD blazes hotly against such self-deluding wistfulness (Numbers 11:10).

Racing Forward
"One thing I do," says Paul,"forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus" (Philippians 3:13-14). We are to be like athletes, running the race, pressing on, straining forward to take hold of the prize that awaits at the finishing line. Action words.

There is no place in the Christian life to be weighed down by the remembered guilt of past sins. But this is not a mere talkshow platitude and positive thinking. When we turn back to God, we take hold of the blessing of the substitionary death of Christ on the cross in our place. Because our sins have been paid for by Jesus, God tells us that he himself shall remember them no more. We trust that God's words are true and that Christ's blood is sufficient to pay for our past wrongs, no matter how terrible they were. We have faith that God has forgiven them as he promised.

There is no place in the Christian life to grow fat and complacent in the "successes" of the past. There must be no coasting on past achievements. Don't think that we have it all wrapped up. Don't think that we have arrived. Don't think we know it all. Don't think that we have triumphed over this or that specific sin. Don't think that our years of experience as a Christian, our office within the church as a minister, an elder, a deacon, a DG leader, a 1-to-1 discipler means that we are "sorted" for life.

Paul tells us in Philippians 3 that the mature Christian realises that his work is never completed, that he cannot let down his guard against sin until he has crossed the finish line, and attained the resurrection from the dead. With the Bible as our directional guide, our map, we are to put all our energy in persevering to the end. Christian believers, forgiven sinners as we are, have to work out our salvation for which Christ has taken hold of us, by striving to become like Christ in our character, and by working for Christ in the world.

So a few weeks ago, when it was a toss-up between (1) free tickets to Zouk's "Very Brit" with all that nostalgic Britpop, synthpop, new wave, Topman/Topshop/Warehouse clubbing gear, alt punk 'ttitude; and (2) having a not-dancey, non-alcoholic DG social, the choice was clear not because we were holy-moleys but because...well...I guess, right remembering helps you to make choices in the here and now for the eternal future.

And of course they don't sell a pint of the club's nastiest for just a quid over here. ;-)

The Bull Run 2005

During lunch hour, some accountants spotted a Starbucks employee dispensing coffee from a metal canister that looked unappetisingly like the container of insecticide that the ubiquitous NEA guys had been totting about the island this dengue season. But our hardy accountants, being practical and not at all adverse to free items, went through several cups of the stuff.

Payback came after markets closed and they realised that their tummies though trained on long late nights and endless cups of caffeine could not cope with the non-airconditioned environment of the Padang where we gathered for this year's Bull Run, the corporate charity fun run in office wear organised by the lovely people at SGX (the Singapore Exchange).

So they took handfuls of antacids and ruminated about the accountability of spending by charities.

Good fun was also to be had at the expense of the corporate governance people who, similarly unused to the heat, were wearing thick T-shirts of dubious breathability. They were promptly (and gleefully) accused of not being transparent.

The following photographs are similarly of dubious quality due to the heat, the battle with mozzies and the excessive build up of lactic acid (and not, I stress, not the free Veuve Clicquot):

Chris Flagnagen (Credit Suisse)

What the desk-bound really wear under the table:

Genuine cubicle dwellers:

Traders clearing adrenaline from their system:

Tall, pale, thin, wearing shorts and cap with shirt, tie and jacket...must be an experienced accountant...:

Tanned, decent-sized, running with a flag...must be the new recruits:

If you've always been too busy to get to know your colleague:

Remember the evil-looking-bull-with-ridiculously-coloured-toupee? These guys were carrying his head in a bedsheet!

Naturally, the Big Bosses get their own lane:

Then on with the party on the Padang!

Boastful fire-eaters, gaudy stilt-walkers and eager clowns mingled with the crowds. But those city kids are difficult to please:

Cute Chaoyang kids dancing:

Free Milo:

free gourmet coffee:

and free Tiger beers and cartons of Veuve Clicquot champagne:

Games of chance:

The management relay with briefcases as batons:

While Merrill's red devils red bulls collected their Best Dressed contest prize:

KPMG cleared out and disappeared back to the office to do more work:

Massively great fun for all and S$2.3 million was raised for various charities. But people wondered if all the money paid out for use of the venue and for publicity and general entertainment (and the goodie bags and the rest of the free stuff) could not have been better spent by giving it to the named charities instead.

How much better stewards of money would Christians be even if we were organising fund-raising for "church" purposes? And how much more cheerful givers of money would we be without having to be distracted by "fun" events while someone attempts to pry the dough from our cold dead hands?

Running the Race and the Bull Run 2005

Had a glorious run in the Singapore Botanic Gardens this evening. How wonderful it was to ease the old body from its bland cramped fluorescent-lit hovel in the office, breathing stale recycled air to saunter and stretch in the setting sun, exploring that light green-lung-filtered paradise filled with the heady scent of frangipanis, trasversing its even pathways, past old trees full of inquisitive squirrels, siberian huskies trying not to overheat, bats in fruit trees, house lizards waiting for dinner and ponds of graceful swans...

doggie-eyed view of the path

lizard waiting for din-din

err..月亮代表我的心 (how would that work though?)

Thence to the Prata Cafe at Evans Lodge where the prata was almost as good as the Jalan Kayu one a decade ago. The kari ayam, maggi goreng, Milo dinosaur and teh-o-ais-limau under the transplanted frangipani tree weren't half bad either. Will return for the tissue and plaster prata and prata bom...

An after-dinner walk round the School of Physical Education track took us past the familiar basketball courts where we'd spent many heart-pounding hours. The courts themselves are nothing to write home about, but they're the only place I know of in Singapore where ice-cold sweat replacement fluids are literally placed in your hot sweaty hands, courtesy of an Indian national on a bicycle illegally peddling isotonic drinks from the depths of his suspiciously overstuffed black trash bag.

Alas. Some other runs/walks will have to take place in Smog Central the CBD. We were planning for this year's charity Bull Run when some bright spark, obviously seizing the opportunity to don some women's clothing, strongly suggested that the men run the 3.2km in skirts, bras enhanced with shredded document fillers and heels.

I suspect other people would rather suffocate in an evil-black-bull-with-nose-ring-and-ridiculous-toupee costume:

So much for running the race well by throwing off everything that encumbers... ;-)

Finishing the Race and Not Wimping Out

Some time ago, we were eagerly anticipating the great feast of runs coming up in the next few months:

New Balance Real Run on 28 August 2005

New Balance Aquathlon Challenge a week later on 3 September 2005

SAFRA Sheares Bridge Run and Army Half Marathon another week after on 11 September 2005

the fun-for-a-good-cause Terry Fox Run 7 days after that on 18 September 2005

and finally, to round off the running year before Christmas so we can enjoy our Christmas noosh, the Standard Chartered Singapore Marathon on 4 December 2005.

As we were planning runs, carbo-loading and how many we'd be able to fit in while still allowing time for recovery and reducing the risk of nasty cases of plantar fasciitis, shin splints, patellofemoral pain, I wondered how apt the oft-used metaphor of the Christian life being a race was.

As a kid, trainers told me that my muscles were fast-twitch and I excelled at the 50m (got such distance one. Last time kid only mah) and the 100m. Without training, the 200m was a bit dodgy especially after the curve and the 400m was a complete no-no. My best friend then was the complete opposite, he had slow-twitch muscles so 400m was a saunter in the park.

Just as I had fast-twitch muscle fibres, I also had a short attention span, got bored easily and couldn't stand repetition. Was constantly sent for "counselling" for disrupting classes, "talking back" to teachers, fighting with boys, throwing chalk at girls (if you used coloured chalk, you'd see where you hit 'em) and skipping school. (Thankfully this was pre-ADD and ADHD mania.)

Now, my great fear is not finishing the Christian race for sheer distractedness (which is sin of course). It seems so much easier for the slow-twitchers; the goody-two-shoes who always do what the teachers say, who are naturally prim and proper and submissive to authorities (now God and church leaders), who do their homework (now bible study), keep the school rules (now God's commandments), to continue.

Running a short distance is fun. You know it's going to end soon and you just give it your all. If I was given 3 months, a year, 3 years to live, I'd be sprinting all the way. But not knowing when the end is makes me very nervous about lasting the distance. Historically, I have never lasted any distance.

What is needed is courage. Courage to persevere. Courage not to ignore fear but to knowing fear and make decisions and act in light of that realistic fear.

One of the guys, a big beefy father of two, described how tough his first marathon was. His whole body ached, his muscles cried out in pain, his lungs felt like they were about to explode, the blisters on his feets were bursting/had already burst. The whole run was one of increasing pain and suffering. He must have been an idiot to subject himself to all this early on a Sunday morning when he could have been having a nice leisurely breakfast with his wife and playing with his kids. Then, when he was 100m from the finishing line, the crowds started cheering him on.

"Go! Go! Go!" they chanted
"加油!加油!"

And he felt as if all the aches and pains and suffering he'd experienced were things of the distant past. All heaviness had suddenly been lifted off. Tears started streaming down his face. He cried so much he could hardly see where he was going. The feeling was so overwhelming he couldn't stop himself. It was the immense indescribable joy of having come through the ordeal; having persevered through the agony, and the goal was just within sight.

Sounds like what the writer of Hebrews describes in 10:26-12:13.

How do we last the distance? How can we hope to finish the marathon?

The Hebrews running coach urges us to:

• keep our eye on the goal: better and lasting possessions (10:34), our rich reward of salvation (10:35-36,39);
• be confident that God will give us what he has promised if we finish the race (10:36);
  
• remember the dire consequences of falling by the wayside, giving up the race: fearful expectation of judgement (10:27), a punishment worse than death (10:28-30), ultimate destruction (10:39). For it is a dreadful thing to fall into the hands of the living God (10:31);
• be sure that the day of judgement is coming, in just a little while (10:37). If you're running a marathon and the finishing line is just within sight, now is not the time the shrink back, for your goal is within grasp;
• be spurred on by those who have run the race before us, who testify to living the courageous life. There is great encouragement in knowing that loads of people have run the same race before us and made it to the finishing line;
• remember that faith (not our own effort) is the key to finishing the race (whole of 11). Faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see (11:1). Faith is about confidence and assurance. It isn't "blind faith" or "a leap in the dark" or some strange esoteric religious feeling or intuition. Faith:
  • recognises and accepts the existence of God on the plentiful evidence that is available in the world that he created;
  • recognises God's incomparable power to call the universe into being from nothingness;
  • recognises God's kingship over all of his creation and his justice in condemning created beings who do not acknowledge him;
  • examines the historical evidence of God's workings throughout the Old Testament and considers that God is trustworthy and can be taken at his word;
  • therefore, accepts his word (now in the Bible) as true and (i) relies on it to anticipate the future: the assurance of things hoped for; and (ii) evaluates the present in light of the future: conviction of things not yet seen.
  Faith is trusting God and his promises. The important thing about faith is not the faith itself (you can have faith in all sorts of things but your faith could be misplaced) but the object of your faith (what you have faith in). We are not saved by faith but by God/Jesus.
  
• be spurred on by the marathoners of the past, the cloud of witnesses, who have not only gone before us but cheer us on as we run our race (12:1) [note: some interpretations];
• throw off everything that might hinder us and sin that so easily entangles (12:1). If we're attempting to finish a marathon, wearing a pink fluffy bunny suit or Spiderman costume loaded with webspinning devices isn't going to help our chances of making it to the finishing line. Get rid of everything that distracts or weighs us down so we can concentrate on making it to our goal;
• fix our eyes on Jesus Christ (12:2-3), who is a perfect model of one who has faith and who has persevered through unspeakable suffering: he was incarnated as a mere man. He endured the cross, a painful and shameful death without dignity, a death that he did not deserve. Yet, he did what was God's will, showing true courage and dependence on, and faith in, God. He then ascended to glory at God's right hand. Jesus trusted God's word and promise of vindication and glory, he was obedient to it and endured the cross, and finally received what was promised. He was courageous and courage comes from trusting in God and his promises;
• fix our eyes on Jesus Christ not only as the perfect pioneer of our faith but the author and perfector of it (12:2). It is God/Jesus who is the author of our faith, who has promised to turn and who has turned our hearts of stone into hearts of flesh (Ezekiel 11:19). Not so that we can be nice to people and do good deeds like the Buddhists, or be nice to all living things like the Jains, or be emotional like girls with PMS, for they do all this without any change in their hearts. God gives us a heart of flesh so that we would recognise whom God is, trust in him and his promises and live our lives according to this reality (Ezekiel 11:20). It is Jesus who is the perfector of our faith for we still live in a sinful world with sinful hearts and never truly completely trust in God. But Jesus perfects our pitiful, cannot-make-it response and it is acceptable to God.
  

The finishing line is within our grasp. The crowds are cheering us on. Let us encourage each other as we run this race together (10:24-25), for in God's word, we too have seen the glory and hope we will share with Christ in the future! So let's run with endurance the race marked out for us, for it is not just our own effort or the encouragement of other people that carries us forward but God himself working effectively in us as well, bringing us to the finishing line.