A Good Run

Benny Locke, an engineer for nearly sixty years with the Lackawanna Railroad, prayed before each day's run. He received no mark of demerit. Here is a how he described one run:

"Number 6 was twenty-five minutes late out of Scranton. I stepped into the cab and prayer "Lord, help me to bring her in on time'. It was a stiff climb up to Pocono Mountains for the first part of the trip, and it never seemed so steep and when you were late. I couldn't gain a second, but after we dipped over the summit things began to break just right for me. We almost flew down the mountain. The air was clear and I just held her steady and let her go. At last the old train shed at Hoboken loomed ahead, and as we pulled under the edge of it, I looked at my watch, and we were just on the dot!

"As I stood wiping the sweat off my face, there was the tap of a cane on the outside of my cab, and when I looked out there stood the president of the road, all smiles. He said to me, 'A good run, sir! A very good run!' That meant more to me than anything that could have happened to me in the world. But friend when I make my last run and pull into the great terminal city (New Jerusalem), if I can just hear the Lord Jesus say, 'A good run, sir! Avery good urn!' then the 'toils of the road will seem as nothing when I get to the end of the way.'"

You too, sir, are in the running for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. Paul said,

Know ye not that they which run in a race run all, but one receiveth the prize? So run, that ye
may obtain. And every man that striveth for the mastery is temperate in all things. Now they do it to obtain a corruptible crown; but we an incorruptible. I therefore so run, not as uncertainly; Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.

Will the President of life's road commend you and me when we get to the end of the run? Sixty years is a long time to serve a railroad. Benny Locke did it, and faithfully. But such a time of service in the employ of the Lord Jesus Christ, and that without a mark of demerit, would be a thrilling experience, wouldn't it?

At the time of his conversion Saul of Tarsus was a young man on the Damascus Road. He became Paul, the aged. All his life was spent in the service of the King of kings. He received no mark of demerit. He finished his run in a blaze of glory.

We cannot stress too much the importance attached to Christ-surrendered men. There is no better way to live out a life than to live it in the service of the King of kings. To hear the Lord Jesus say, "A good run, sir, a very good run" will be worth it al. Here is the highest calling the most thrilling challenge and life at its best. It is yours, sir, for the taking.