Hey, welcome to today's encouragement from Our Daily Bread.

The reading for today titled The Crown of Life was written by Marvin Williams.

Twelve-year-old Lee Adjanias Rodriguez Espada was worried that she'd be late for a 5K run.

Her anxiousness led her to take off with a group of runners 15 minutes earlier than her start

time with participants of the half marathon more than 13 miles.

Li Adianyas fell in place with other runners and put one foot in front of the other.

At mile four, with the finish line nowhere in sight, she realized she was in a longer and more difficult race.

Instead of dropping out, she simply kept running. The accidental half-marathoner completed her 13.1

mile race and placed 1,885th out of 2,111 finishers. Now that's perseverance.

While undergoing persecution, many first-century believers in Jesus wanted to drop out of their race for Christ, but James encouraged them to keep running. If they patiently endured testing, God promised a double reward. First, perseverance would finish its work so that they could be mature and complete,

not lacking anything. Second, God would give them the crown of life, life in Jesus on earth,

and the promise of being in his presence in the life to come. Some days the Christian race feels

like it's not the one we signed up for.

It's something longer and more difficult than we expected.

But as God provides what we need, we can persevere and keep on running.

Today's Our Daily Bread devotional scripture reading is from James chapter 1,

verses 1 through 12.

James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ, to the 12 tribes scattered among the nations.

Greetings.

Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters,

whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith

produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete,

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