Personal best?

I admit it, I am feeling just a little bit pleased with myself.

Why?

Because last Saturday, I achieved a Personal Best for my weekly 5 kilometre run.

I joined the brilliant Parkrun scheme earlier this year, when I decided I needed to do something extra to fight the middle-aged flab. And the experience has proven trying, testing, exhilarating and painful. The Parkrun scheme operates at hundreds of parks worldwide, is entirely staffed by volunteers, and does one simple thing really, really well. At 9am on Saturday morning all over the world, someone says "Go", and everybody runs for 5,000 meters.

OK, I admit that 31 minutes 12 seconds does not exactly put me in an Olympian category. And truth to tell, I can't really call it a personal best because I would never have made it on my own.

I run (and sometimes walk) in a field that sometimes numbers 1000 in Bushey Park, London. But what is so brilliant about Parkrun is that, although I'm sure the few at the front get quite competitive, everyone else is just so encouraging. The volunteer stewards at each corner clapped me and urged me on. The other runners regularly call on me to "keep going".

And 500 meters from the end, when I basically wanted to give up, an unknown guy behind me read my T-shirt and yelled at me" Come on Good Book - don't walk now - there's plenty more in the tank!" He didn't judge me. He didn't talk down to me. He didn't belittle my efforts. He just encouraged me.

I didn't think I could, I wasn't sure I wanted to, but with such encouragement I did. And he ran with me to the finish. "Well done Good Book!" he said, as we sucked air and recovered.

Perseverance in the Christian life is completely like this. It's never a solo effort. Whatever we think to be our personal bests in acts of kindness and love, and our weak efforts at telling others, or parenting children, they are nothing of the sort. Of course it is the Holy Spirit at work in the lives of those who trust Christ who brings out the Goodness of God out in our lives. But time and again the Bible tells us that Godliness has a corporate dimension to it. Paul tells the Thessalonians:

And we urge you, brothers, admonish the idle, encourage the fainthearted, help the weak, be patient with them all (1 Thessalonians 5:14).

There will be times in every Christians' life when we feel like giving up, or dropping down to a leisurely walk, rather than striving forward. It's at those times we most desperately need to be part of a crowd who are running. Who will say to us: "come on, don't give up - the finish line is just ahead. Let's do it together."