In Hebrews 12, we are given a vivid picture of the Christian life. The writer takes us to a great stadium with a long race track, and he invites us to imagine ourselves as runners on the track, enduring a long and grueling race.

In 2017, the British Broadcasting Corporation commissioned a survey on religious beliefs in the UK. Strikingly, the survey found that fully a quarter of those who identified as Christians did not believe in the resurrection.

Maximilian Kolbe was a Polish Priest who, during the Second World War, spoke out against the Nazi regime and offered protection and shelter to many Jewish people in the monastery in which he lived. In 1941 he was arrested by the Gestapo and eventually sent to the concentration camp at Auschwitz.

Have you ever gone on a long hike, perhaps over many days or weeks. Perhaps you have walked the Appalacian Trail or the Pennine Way– maybe you have even tackled a mountain range somewhere like the hike to the Everest Base Camp. Perhaps you have a dream or ambition to tackle a great trail in the years to come, like a portion of the Alps.

Isn’t it amazing how fast children grow up? How exciting it is for parents to see their children develop along the way, to transition from crawling to walking or from babbling to speaking.