Treadmill Tales

How is it that some of my most profound thoughts occur in the shower or on the treadmill? 

This past summer I began jogging fairly regularly.  I’d run in the past, but nothing very seriously.  However, this past year I routinely got myself out of bed, while the kiddos were still sleeping, and ran at 7:00 am three to four times a week.  (This Sleepy Head even got herself out of bed for 6:00 am runs during our youth group’s mission trip!)  Personally, I think that getting up before 9:00 am should be crime, but I was determined to stick to it so I had to set my previous sleeping habits aside.  With a goal set before me, I got up and ran.  There were days that I looked forward to it, but there were many more days that I did not.  While out running, I would often have to bribe myself with “just to the light post” challenges so I wouldn’t give up prematurely. 

After the running routine became, well, routine, I started to see some spiritual correlations. 

• Self-discipline in doing anything that our flesh doesn’t want to do, anything typically difficult, takes consistent practice and commitment.  We know what we want…and we also know what would be good for us (or spiritually speaking, glorifying to God).  It takes an awareness to know what our flesh desires, an awareness to know what tempts our flesh, and an awareness to know what would be better.  Oftentimes what looks good to us right now can be the enemy of what is best for us in the long run.  What does your flesh want that you know needs to be brought under discipline?  On any given day for me it might be:  anger, food, drink, lust, laziness, etc.

 


• Goal-setting is tantamount in running a race, and that includes running the Christian race.  If I just woke up on a beautiful, lazy summer morning without any purpose in mind, I would either turn over and go back to bed or begin my day doing all the little urgent things vying for my attention.  However, with a specific goal in mind (running), I woke up and immediately got on my running clothes and shoes  and warmed up my muscles to prepare for the run.  As a Christian, I could constantly be swallowed up by my life’s situations and take my eyes off of Jesus if I don’t have a purpose set before me.   What is your spiritual purpose?

 

• In the midst of a hard run on a hot summer day, all I want to do is quit.  When my muscles hurt and my lungs have no more capacity to breathe, the only thing that keeps me going is prayer.  When I run, I find that praying helps me to accomplish something important while I’m exercising, and it causes the time to breeze by.  I  pray for specific prayer requests, but I also pray “Lord, help me!  Give me endurance.  I know that I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.”   It isn’t a coincidence that that very prayer can also be said when I’m in the midst of a spiritual crisis and I just want to give up and be sucked into the anxious circumstances that surround me.  As I witness God strengthening me physically, I grow in faith knowing that He also will strengthen me spiritually.  Are your eyes fixed on Jesus, or on everything else around you?

 

• Even though it was often difficult to get myself out of bed to run, I always felt better once the run was finished.  Regardless of my initial perspective (“this is going to be hard, this is going to hurt, I don’t want to go through with this”), my mind and body were always renewed…and stronger…after the discipline of a good run.  I find this to be the case in my Christian walk, too.  Whether it be bible study, prayer, memorizing scripture, serving in the Church, it can often seem overwhelming to begin.  But, afterwards I am always renewed and stronger.  Spiritually speaking, it’s also revigorating to discipline my flesh.  It doesn’t seem like it will be easy to say ‘no’ to temptation.  In fact, I often just don’t want to say no!  Once we get through a particular temptation victoriously, though, we are renewed…and stronger…for the next time our flesh cries out.  Are we even in the habit of saying “no” to our flesh?  Do we see the need to discipline it?  Can you imagine how your Christian walk will change by surrendering to the Holy Spirit instead of your flesh?

The apostle Paul uses several references in the New Testament to disciplining the body, but I want to leave you with my favorite verse related to this topic.  It’s probably my favorite because I can so easily identify with it while I’m running…

Therefore we also, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.    Hebrews 12: 1-2

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