You Can't Prepare for a Marathon in a Day
Posted in Bible, jesus, Prayer, running 0 comments
Lately I've been running again. I absolutely enjoy running.
Once you get passed the achy body, being out of breath, knee injuries, people almost hitting your with their cars, heat exhaustion, freezing your lungs when it's cold out, or fighting the urge to throw up, it's really not so bad.
I encounter a problem when I start running again though. You see, in high school, I ran cross country and track. My best mile times were sub 5 mins and my best 5Ks were 17:13. I was 2 years all state and one of the best on our team. I don't say that to brag, I say that to say when I start back up now, that's what I expect.
I haven't run super consistently since high school. But when I start each time I expect myself to go out and run 6 or 7 miles at a 7 minute mile pace. I expect to have no injuries and to immediately slim down. Then I get frustrated when that is not the case.
So often, I stop for another couple months and try at it again, just to "fail" all over.
I think a lot of us treat our walk with Christ that way. We look at others and see how much time they spend in prayer or how much Bible reading they do and we get really excited. We think "Wow I can do that!" Then we jump right in and it's not as easy as we thought.
We fall asleep while praying.
We have trouble focusing on 6 chapters of Leviticus.
We miss a day here or there.
Then we think "I must not be cut out for this!" and we just stop doing it all together.
But just like exercise, we need to start out slowly. We can't go from eating potato chips every day while sitting in the office chair to running a marathon in a week. Neither can we go from not practicing spiritual disciplines to doing them all diligently right away.
Find an area of your life. Maybe it's Bible reading. Perhaps it's prayer. Maybe you feel you need to work on some of the Fruit of the Spirit. Whatever it may be, start out slow. Work on one fruit for a while til you get it down.
If we start out to quickly or expect too much, we will get frustrated and "fail." Don't do that to yourself. Growing in Christ is going to take practice and "exercise." So start working those muscles little by little.
Once you get passed the achy body, being out of breath, knee injuries, people almost hitting your with their cars, heat exhaustion, freezing your lungs when it's cold out, or fighting the urge to throw up, it's really not so bad.
I encounter a problem when I start running again though. You see, in high school, I ran cross country and track. My best mile times were sub 5 mins and my best 5Ks were 17:13. I was 2 years all state and one of the best on our team. I don't say that to brag, I say that to say when I start back up now, that's what I expect.
I haven't run super consistently since high school. But when I start each time I expect myself to go out and run 6 or 7 miles at a 7 minute mile pace. I expect to have no injuries and to immediately slim down. Then I get frustrated when that is not the case.
So often, I stop for another couple months and try at it again, just to "fail" all over.
I think a lot of us treat our walk with Christ that way. We look at others and see how much time they spend in prayer or how much Bible reading they do and we get really excited. We think "Wow I can do that!" Then we jump right in and it's not as easy as we thought.
We fall asleep while praying.
We have trouble focusing on 6 chapters of Leviticus.
We miss a day here or there.
Then we think "I must not be cut out for this!" and we just stop doing it all together.
But just like exercise, we need to start out slowly. We can't go from eating potato chips every day while sitting in the office chair to running a marathon in a week. Neither can we go from not practicing spiritual disciplines to doing them all diligently right away.
Find an area of your life. Maybe it's Bible reading. Perhaps it's prayer. Maybe you feel you need to work on some of the Fruit of the Spirit. Whatever it may be, start out slow. Work on one fruit for a while til you get it down.
If we start out to quickly or expect too much, we will get frustrated and "fail." Don't do that to yourself. Growing in Christ is going to take practice and "exercise." So start working those muscles little by little.
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