It is not too difficult to affirm the goodness of God when all is going well—when you gaze into the eyes of your future spouse or when you sit by a lake on a glorious summer day. But it is a bit more difficult to extol the goodness of God during the storms of life—when your spouse betrays you, when your boss fires you, or when your doctor calls with life-altering medical news. Charles Spurgeon once wrote that “God is too good to be unkind and He is too wise to be mistaken. And when we cannot trace His hand, we must trust His heart.” But how do we trust God with the pain in our lives? Can we trust God when others have let us down and even betrayed us?

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.

Have you ever gone on a long hike, perhaps over many days or weeks? Perhaps you have walked the Appalachian 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.

It’s easy to be hypocritical, and we’re all guilty of it sometimes. A little while ago, Florida’s Sun Sentinel examined the records of 3,915 officers who had traveled on toll roads in 2011. The paper found that nearly 800 of them had driven at speeds of 90 to 130 miles an hour, many either while off duty or in violation of department rules. Jesus offers some sobering insights on hypocrisy in the Sermon on the Mount. His insights are relevant today.