John 20:4

This verse comes from the account of Easter morning in John's Gospel. Mary Magdalene had found the empty tomb and run to tell two of Jesus's closest followers — Simon Peter and another disciple, widely believed to be John himself, the author of this Gospel. Both men immediately sprinted toward the tomb to see for themselves. The small, almost breathless detail that one man outran the other is the kind of thing only an eyewitness would bother to remember — and it gives the whole account an unmistakable ring of personal memory.

Lord, I don't always come to you with certainty or a polished faith. But I can run. Give me legs that move toward you even when I don't fully understand what I'm moving toward. Like those two men on that cold, breathless morning — let urgency beat hesitation in me. Amen.

There is something disarming about the fact that Scripture slows down on this moment — the most earth-shattering morning in human history — to tell us who won a footrace. Someone noticed. Someone remembered. In the middle of everything, John's brain was still clocking the small things: the sound of sandals on stone, the cold air, who got there first. Real memories work that way. This is not polished theology. This is a man who was there, decades later, still able to feel the ache in his lungs. And maybe that's the invitation for you. The resurrection doesn't ask you to arrive with a fully worked-out faith. It just asks you to run toward it — not gracefully, not with certainty, but urgently. Peter and John didn't have a theology or a plan. They had a rumor and two working legs. When you feel furthest from belief, you don't need more proof before you move. Sometimes the only honest response is to start running and see what you find when you get there.