Today I'm going running for the first time since my race. I feel a little crazy for electing to do physical exercise when I could just sit here and eat chips, but I know I'll feel good after I do it, and I'm kind of looking forward to getting out there and just enjoying it, instead of worrying about my pace or time. I have some new good tunes to listen to and I'm going to re-visit my old 5K stomping ground that I'm oh so familiar with.
Since the race, my mind's been on many other things...which we will discuss at a later date. But I've been reflecting back on it and finding that so many areas of my life are like a metaphorical marathon. Namely, my spiritual walk. I, like many others, have miles where I sail along with little effort, feeling good, reading the word and staying strong. Then there are miles where every step takes all your energy and effort, and you feel like a thousand pounds of dead weight dragging along the ground. Opening your Bible is like pulling a tooth out and praying feels like a chore. Those miles count the most. Learning to push through and get past those hard miles will make your next hard mile go faster and easier.
Sometimes during my training, I would get outside and start running only to find that every fiber of my body wanted to STOP. I was dying to walk, dying to just go home and sit down...but I would tell myself, "if this were race day I would have to push through these feelings, so keep on going". And most of the time those runs got easier after a few horrible miles, but sometimes they didn't and I just got home and tried to recover from a horrible run. But the point was, finishing those hard times made the next hard time easier. The next time I felt horrible I knew I could push through because I had done it before. When my spiritual life feels dry and heavy, forcing myself to push through and be uncomfortable is rewarding and I seem to find the hard times fewer and far between.
A marathon also has miles full of distractions much like a spiritual walk, and sometimes the most dangerous distractions are the positive ones. When Disney set up the race course to have bands and cheerleaders along the route, I'm sure they just wanted to encourage and spur people on. However if you're not careful, you can really waste a lot of your precious energy giving away high-fives willy nilly, and yelling 'way to go' and 'thanks for volunteering' to all the water station workers. If you stop to admire all the support, you could be too tired to finish or too slow to complete the race in time. I saw people standing in a 12 person deep line in the middle of the race, just to get a picture with Ariel. WHAT? Although the standing and not-running part looked tempting, I would never waste any time doing that...precious time. Why draw the race out any longer than it needs to be. And in my spiritual life, I can also be easily distracted by cool Theology books, or self-help books, or being a Mommy books until I realize it's been a while since I read THE book. Distraction meant to be encouraging but ending up hurting in the end. Beware.
Then later, when you get to the last few miles and you're adrenaline finally kicks in and you feel you have a somewhat supernatural energy source you can tap into you're somehow able to finish what you once thought to be an impossible task. Only in a spritual sense, the adrenaline to tap into is really the Holy Spirit who is always so great to keep us going and encouraged when we hit mile 13 and feel depleated. He is our supernatural energy source. He allows me to clean the house and have people over for the 100th time this week. He keeps my patients supplied when my kids are nuts and crying and throwing things. He knows when my human supply of joy or love for others is almost depleated and he always manages to come to the rescue with a fresh supply that could only be from Him.
So although I promised not to mention my marathon again, I'm amazed at how it has paralleled my life in other areas and wanted to share that. So although I'm finished my race, I want to keep on running...both physically and spiritually.
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