John Stephen Akhwari was a Tanzanian marathon runner in the 1968 Olympic Games in Mexico City. Like all of the other athletes, John trained rigorously and was looking forward to running appearing in the Olympic Games. On the day of the marathon he started out and ran well until about three quarters of the way through, when he fell and hurt his knee, dislocated a joint, and slammed his shoulder into the pavement. Despite his injuries he got up and continued to run. More than an hour after the other marathoners had finished the race, there were only several thousand people left in the stadium, John runs into the stadium, crosses the finish line and becomes the final runner of the marathon, 57th among the 75 athletes who had started.
When a reporter asked John why he continued to run and didn’t quit, John said, “My country did not send me 5000 miles to start the race, my country sent me 5000 miles to finish the race.”

God did not give us our gifts from eternity into time to just start them; He sent us here to finish them! To bring forth into the world the eternity He placed in our hearts. God has given each and every one of us something particular to do. Start it, pursue it, do it, and do not quit until you finish what He sent you here to do.