The Bridge Builder Who Never Looked Back

In 2017, ultramarathon runner Courtney Dauwalter stood at the starting line of the Moab 240 — a 238-mile race through the Utah desert. By mile 180, she was temporarily blind from swelling in her corneas. Her crew begged her to stop. Every reasonable voice said turn back. She kept moving forward, navigating by the sound of her pacer's footsteps, finishing first overall — ahead of every man and woman in the field — in just under 58 hours.

When reporters asked how she pushed through the blindness, the pain, the hallucinations, she said something remarkably simple: "I just never gave myself permission to quit."

Luke tells us that Jesus "resolutely set His face to go to Jerusalem." The Greek word there carries the force of iron — a face hardened like flint toward an unflinching destination. Jesus knew what waited in Jerusalem. Betrayal. Mockery. A cross. He went anyway, without detour, without excuse.

Then He turned to would-be followers and laid bare what discipleship costs. One wanted to bury his father first. Another wanted a proper goodbye. Reasonable requests, every one. But Jesus saw something dangerous in the backward glance — not cruelty, but clarity. The plow cuts no straight furrow when the farmer watches what he is leaving behind.

Following Christ has never been about the absence of good reasons to stop. It is about never giving yourself permission to turn back from the One who never turned back from you.