MONDAY - Devotional

READ: 1 Samuel 6:14-15

(Answer the question/s below in your app notes)

• This is how David expressed his whole heart worshipping God. How can you do that this week?

Mari grew up running. She lived on a long, three mile driveway that wound around towering evergreens before finally meeting the main road. She would run different portions of it, finding refuge in the breathless routine.

In high school, she joined the track team and trained intensely, pushing herself a little farther each day. In college, she ran marathons. She ran so well that small businesses in her hometown began sponsoring her races if she wore their merch. By the time she graduated with a degree in exercise science, she had run nine marathons.

Her tenth was the challenge she never saw coming.

Rounding a corner in a charming downtown stretch of the race, she tripped and fell hard. Gravel scraped her skin. Dirt streaked across her shirt. When she touched her forehead, her fingers came away bright with blood.

She hobbled to the medical tent. The nurse cleaned and bandaged her cuts.

“I can call someone to wheel you out,” the nurse offered gently.

Mari looked at the runners flying past. She was only two and a half miles from the finish line. “No,” she said. “I’ll finish it.”

And she did. With aching knees and a stinging face, Mari finished the race. Not perfectly. Not painlessly. But wholeheartedly.

God asks us for that kind of wholehearted faith — not flawless performance, but steady trust. Scripture is full of people who kept going: Abraham, David, Esther, Mary. They didn’t always have easy victories. But they stayed faithful.

When we give our whole hearts to God, he grows something strong inside us — courage, endurance, and deeper faith. And that kind of growth is always worth it.