Hey everyone, this is Pastor Rick's Daily Hope, and we are so glad that you're here today.

You know, you can lose your money, your health, and even the people you love.

But you can never lose God's love for you.

Stay tuned today as Rick continues his new series called The Key to Hope.

All right, well now let's get right to Rick with part one of a message called How to Finish Well.

Every year in Alaska, they have an endurance race called the Iditasport, not the Adidasport with the

dogs, but this is actually a skiing race. It's a grueling 170-mile race through ice and

sleet and snow and sub-zero temperatures. Now a few years back, Jim Jagers, the professional skier,

was actually leading that race for most of the race until he got about 50 miles out from the end.

He'd already gone 120 miles, and he was two hours ahead of the nearest competitor.

I mean, way out in front.

But then he got discouraged.

He got tired.

He started to slow down.

And with only 30 miles left in the race after being ahead

that far he was passed by another skier. That so crushed Jim's spirit that he took out

his sleeping bag, stopped in the middle of the race, went over to the side of the trail, and curled up in the sleeping bag for over an hour before finishing the race.

He said, it just undid me.

Have you ever felt like that?

I know I've got a lot of things to do today, but I think I'm just going to curl up in the sleeping bag on the side.

I know I've got a lot of things left, and I'm not through, and I've got a lot more to do.

I'm just going to curl up on the side.

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