The River and the Ridge

In 2018, ultramarathon runner Courtney Dauwalter won the Moab 240 — a 238-mile race across the Utah desert. But what struck people wasn't the finish line. It was what happened right after her previous victory at the Tahoe 200. She crossed that line to cheers, embraces, and the undeniable confirmation that she belonged among the world's elite endurance athletes. Her identity was sealed.

Then she went straight back to training in the Colorado high country — alone, grinding through snowpack and altitude, running ridgelines where the wind could knock a person flat. No cameras. No crowd. Just her lungs burning and her mind asking whether she really was who that finish line said she was.

That sequence matters.

In Mark's Gospel, Jesus rises from the Jordan River with heaven torn open and the voice of the Almighty ringing out: "You are My beloved Son." The very next verse says the Spirit "immediately" drove Him into the wilderness. Not a vacation. Not a victory lap. Forty days of dust, hunger, wild animals, and Satan's whispers trying to make Him doubt the words still echoing from the riverbank.

God doesn't confirm our identity so we can frame the certificate. He confirms it so we can survive what comes next. The wilderness isn't a detour from the calling — it's the trailhead. And the voice that spoke over the water is the same voice that sustains us in the dust.