Thursday, May 21, 2009

Little Boy Running

I was running again today. Something really neat happened.
I was running at a park where there is a 2.2 mile loop and I was just starting on the second loop. I had run past this dad and his son fishing on the first loop and as I was on the second loop I was passing them because I was running, and the son had to be no older than four. As I ran past them, I heard these little footsteps quicken and I realized that this little boy was running behind me, trying to keep up. He was so cute.
I am not gonna lie. It was an awesome moment.
I slowed down and let him run with me for a bit.
All I could do was just smile.
He eventually slowed down
smiled
and went back to his dad.
I am not going to try to come up with some spiritual metaphor for this.
I could try though.
All I want to say. Is this:
Don’t forget to enjoy life every once in a while.
Don’t be afraid to run after something even if you can not keep up.
Thats all.

Saturday, May 16, 2009

Run

I have forgotten lately how much I love running in my life. Running is the one avenue that I think God speaks to me the most. Some very key moments of clarity have come to my attention in the midst of a run whether it was 3, 6, or 13 miles long. God has used running in my life to show me very important things about myself in a way nothing else has.
All that to say, I was running today at Little Mulberry park, and a lot of thoughts just started streaming into my head about life and about where I have been these past months spiritually on this trek through the desert and what God has been teaching me. Like usual, my ideas are rather random, and jumbled together in the midst of ramblings. So here are a couple thoughts that have been in my head.
Being an avid runner, I am convinced that God gave us legs to run, so that through running we may have metaphors for our walk/run with Him.
If you run, you know the terms of “hitting a wall” “runner’s high” and so on. Just like in Christianity there are those cliches as well. 
 We all know what its like to “hit a wall” spiritually.
Where it seems like prayers are hitting the ceiling and then bouncing right back down to hit you in the face. That is not an unknown feeling to most.
Then on the flip-side we know what its like to have a “spiritual high”
There are those times where everything is going right, where you just wake up and things are just right.
The reason behind this is because as Christians, at our core, is a runner. (maybe not physically for some…)
God has created us to run.
God has created us to endure.
Now I say all of that to come right back to my run today. I was running and was on the other side of the lake and I heard rain coming and then it just started moving across the lake ever so swiftly right to where I was running. Now I was at mile 1.2 on a 4.4 mile run.
And it was a hard rain for about 5 minutes. Not quite pouring, but hard enough to where it was not that much fun.
The easy thing to do was turn around and finish my run with 2.4 miles. But I came for 4.4 and I was not going to give up. To a runner, what matters is not the conditions in which he runs in but rather that he continues. The runner knows the results that are necesarry for training and refuses to cut short the training despite the temptation of an easy run.
Again, this can all be translated to Christianity, to following Jesus. Christianity is never a guarantee of rain free runs. Our God is a wild God, and with a wild God comes wild weather, in which there is sunshine and rain. What matters is not the condition but the ability to continue.
Well as many of you know and some of you don’t. My life these past two months have been an all out sprint in the rain.
Sideways rain.
I have not given up. In fact, I have never felt so strongly about where I am and what I am doing. I am for once in the past two months or so, incredibly happy.
Now, there was a time where I stopped to think about whether I should continue or not.
I Wanted to give up. In fact, I came VERY close to giving up.
I am not going to lie.
If it weren’t for key people in my life I would have.
But, instead I saw the goal, I saw where God was leading me. I stood up, put my head down, and continued the run.
Again, its not the conditions that matter, but rather the ability to continue.
I am certainly not saying this to say how awesome and spiritual I am.
I am so far from that.
I can be so immature, and so unwise, but God has made me to run,
And so I do.
And, I am still running you know.
I can’t give up.
I am not going to give up.
Because at my core is a runner.
My heart beats to the steps that I take in accordance to God’s will for my life.
So, friend, may you run. Rejoice in the sunny runs, and continue in the rainy runs.
God is with you.
No matter what, continue.



“Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.”
-Philippians 3:12-14