Running the Race

This past weekend was an especially hard one for me. Our family has been on a long, hard, messy, and beautiful road to healing for the past several years. If you're not familiar with our story yet, it's a good one.

And it turns out, it's a long one. We were recently told the healing journey takes at least two to five years. Next week marks a two year anniversary of sorts and that means we're not even to the mid-point yet. Of course, that's an average, but it's been helpful for me to have a grid for my heart.

Recently, the weariness has been heavy.

The journey has been long.

And exhaustion has set in.

This weekend it all hit. Hard.

So I went on a run. To clear my head. To get some time to myself. It was getting late and looked even later because of the time change the night before.

This time, there was no music or podcasts. I had a lot to talk to God about. But for most of the run, my mind was blank. And all I could think about was how physically hard my run was.

So instead of hashing it out with God, this was happening in my head:

It's getting dark - I'm getting scared...

How much longer do I need to run? 

I can't go on, I'm so tired! 

I just want to quit!

But each time I had one of these thoughts, scripture would immediately follow.

It's getting dark - I'm getting scared...

But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. (1 Peter 2:9)

How much longer do I need to run?

Do not throw away your confidence, which has a great reward. For you have need of endurance, so that when you have done the will of God you may receive what is promised. (Hebrews 10:35-36)

I can't go on, I'm so tired!

We rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame. (Romans 5:3-5)  

I just want to quit!

Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith. (Hebrews 12:1-2) 

And I realized, about halfway in, that I WAS hashing it out with God. My weariness. My exhaustion. He was using my run to whisper to my heart what I really needed.

He is calling me to endurance.

He has called me out of the darkness into a glorious light.

He is using this season to produce character and hope.

And my job in all of this: simply to look to Jesus.

So here I am. Preaching the gospel to myself again. Because my heart needs to hear it over and over and over.

I like the King James version of Hebrews when it says, "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 is set down at the right hand of the throne of God." 

I just need to keep running. Jesus will finish it for me.