“Run with Purpose: 1 Corinthians 9:26.” That’s the sticker my niece picked out to fill one of the open spaces on my second Nalgene water bottle, the first already covered at least three times over. The paraphrase sums up in three words one of my favorite Pauline quotations:

“Do you not know that the runners in the stadium all run in the race, but only one wins the prize? Run so as to win. Every athlete exercises discipline in every way. They do it to win a perishable crown, but we an imperishable one. Thus I do not run aimlessly; I do not fight as if I were shadow-boxing. No, I drive my body and train it…” (1 Cor. 9: 24-27).

In this passage, Paul is making an appeal for his ministry and the freedom he experiences while living out and proclaiming the Gospel. Both as a runner and as a Christian, I have found these words inspirational.

“Run with purpose.” The words will echo in my mind when, sleepily, I get out of bed in the early pre-dawn hours and gulp down the cup of lukewarm coffee which I prepared the night before. “Run with purpose,” I think again as I trace the sign of the cross on my lips, asking God’s assistance as I pray the liturgy of the hours, as I pray for and with the whole Church—and, as I also consider what’s on deck for the day.

I lace up my shoes and head out the door and begin to run up Park Street: “Run with purpose.”

My route this morning took me through New Haven’s streets, past the residential colleges, up and down East Rock, over to Yale Divinity School and down Science Hill to Grove Street. Today, I’m feeling all the more inspired, all the more purposeful, because while these streets were abruptly, eerily empty six months ago, the students are now here, in their colleges, in their apartments. They are here for the start of a new academic year.

I’m praying for all of them, praying that they are finding ways to creatively discipline their bodies and their minds, to stay focused, to stay close to Christ as they run through the next three months to Thanksgiving. Whatever the days, weeks, months ahead may hold, we all run on faith. We run for that imperishable crown and with God’s pleasure, we will run with purpose.