Preparing to Run

I've recently decided that I should spend more time exercising than what I have been. One way that I thought of to do that would be to increase the amount of walking that I do until I'm in good enough shape to run. After stepping up my exercise routines for a very short time, I decided it was time to test out the new strength in my legs and see how far I could run.

Surprisingly, I was able to run a considerable distance further than I had been able to previously. When I got home that night, my legs were on fire though. The next day, my ankles hurt so bad I could hardly walk. Apparently, I had done tendon damage by not being properly prepared to run. In all my preparations to walk, I got my media player out, headphones, etc.; stretching was never on my list.

When I decided to run, I stretched first, but because I hadn't made it a habit before exercise to stretch, my body was unprepared to deal with the added stress. My legs were strong enough, the muscles could handle it. I'm reminded of our daily dealings with God in all of this. We pray a little every day, read our Bibles; we're just walking along with God. Then, we come upon a hard time, and have the need to run, and we falter or we injure ourselves because we weren't used to stretching our spiritual lives that far.

1 Timothy 4:7-8 says to exercise yourself to Godliness. You exercise normally by practicing what you want to do at the top of your training routine and you'll always be ready to do your best. If you do the bare minimum for the stage you're on, you'll find yourself injured trying to reach the next phase.

Running the Race

I'm not personally a big follower of sports. You won't find me at a racetrack or a ball game. However, being a man, I talk to other men who most often are greatly concerned with following whatever sports are currently in season. However, whether you follow sports or not, there is one competition in which we all should be participating.

Hebrews 12:1-2 presents a challenge to us as Christians. Are we really being competitive in our Christian life? Or are we carrying around weights and sins? Do we keep stopping on the side of the track because we have so much baggage that we're ineffective runners? The Bible here lets us know that people are watching us, and we need to keep running. It says we need to throw off everything that hinders; throwing off just most of the stuff that hinders us but hanging on to part of it for ourselves isn't enough. We also need to throw off the sin that so easily entangles us. We get so tangled up in some insignificant thing in our life, and forget that we're in a race.

This is such a great analogy; you never see a race where one of the runners just suddenly forgets that they're racing. You see some runners get tired and quit. You see runners trip, stumble, and fall. You see ball players get tackled, pummeled, and injured. Most of them get back up and keep trying; pushing their bruised and tired bodies to the limit for the win.

Hebrews 12:3 goes on to say "Consider Him who endured such opposition from sinful men, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart." If we see Jesus, and we study His life, we see that he endured far worse than what we're going through, and He's promised He'll be here for us. When we keep our eyes on Jesus, He'll keep His hand on our lives, and we'll not give up and quit. If we turn and look at the things around us, we'll keep stumbling on the track. If we watch how other people are running, we're going to get disgruntled, and give up. Let's keep our eyes on Jesus and run our race.

More verses:
1 Corinthians 9:24-27
Philippians 3:14-15