running {it teaches}
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Won’t you come and run with me? The skies are blue, the sun warm and guilding life with gold, the road open with possibility.
I am a runner. And it teaches.
And I’m not trying to be dramatic about it, but the truth is this: I never believed I could do it. But today, I ran nine and a half miles. Next week, I’ll run ten and a half. And somewhere around mile six, I settle into the run, breathing deeply through my nose, smiling at God and the blue sky, deep like a sapphire lake. I want to run more than my body can, but I stop so that my muscles can grow stronger, to catch up to my heart…and my spirit.
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I still remember training for my first race. Okay, so maybe it hardly qualifies as training, but running down the street and back with your dad, out of breath and just figuring out sweat, comes pretty close when you’re ten and pushing yourself has hardly become habit.
Fifth grade and round about the middle, awkward in my changing body, and reluctantly I went out with Dad to learn to run. We had a race coming up at school. On our way back home, the short stretch of street seemed long, as though my feet pushed it out further with every step. I begged him just to let me stop. I couldn’t catch my breath, and inexperience turned into wheezing, me clutching at the cramp knotting up my right side.
“Just till the next mail box,” Dad encouraged urgently, “don’t think any further. Just to the next mailbox, then the next, then the next, one section of the road at a time. Don’t stop. You can do this!”
I remember that now—his voice, the wisdom he spoke into my life, him running beside me—and nothing about the race we ran for school, except that it was called The Tiger Trot. Well, I do remember one thing about the race: another kid’s dad, riding on a golf cart in the opposite direction, through the middle of the sea of parents and kids and all our awkwardly pounding feet, holding a cap gun in the air. He wore a plaid tie and punctuated shouts of encouragement with the pop! of that cap gun. And I remember my dad beside me, mumbling something under his breath when the gun went off.
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Countless times, I’ve been back on that street in my thoughts, all sweaty and trying to learn, hearing Dad push me on to just one more mailbox. In those days, black hair wet against my neck, I learned what it means to run with my dad and learn from him. And I distinctly recall that I hated running then, did not want to do it ever again, could not see myself ever choosing it. But the training ground was spiritual, the lesson larger than the road and the day. Because that’s exactly the way that God does fatherhood. And YHWH has a way of pushing me to do the things I least expect. And I wonder…I mean, I really want to know: What is the thing He’s called you to that you never would’ve imagined? And tell me, especially, of the treasure in the experience. What is He teaching you in the middle of it?
Running, for me, is an extension of an always-conversation with God, Him beside me teaching, just the way Dad showed me all those years ago. YHWH urges, speaks wisdom into my life, and never leaves my side. And always, there’s this scripture echoing in my thoughts:
Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, 2fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith. For the joy set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. 3 Consider him who endured such opposition from sinners, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart (Hebrews 12: 1-3).
In the last few miles, these phrases echo deep…run with perseverance the race marked out…throwing off all that hinders…for the joy set before…do not grow weary and lose heart. For years, I’ve asked Him over and over, about every curve in life’s path: How will this teach? What do you mean for me to learn? And I ask Him this about running too. Faithfully, He speaks, settling the lessons deep. When the run is long over and I unlace my shoes, these are some of the lessons I remember:
Preparation is not a wasted, fruitless effort. Waiting is the pregnant space that births readiness, and impatience comes from underestimating the value of proper training.
I have old knees that have creaked on stairs since high school, and the first time I tried to take up running, my knees hurt so badly that wisdom finally bid me quit. I had given up on the idea, deciding that my knees simply would not let me run. But sometimes we all need the push of someone who has learned ahead of us, and it takes wisdom to recognize that we can learn from each other, and that this learning may help us achieve what we never might have otherwise.
One day I sat telling my brother and sister-in-law about how much I wished I could run, but how my knees just hurt too much. My brother urged me to try again, told me that he has the same old, creaky knees, and that running never worked for him either until he found the right training method and bought a good pair of running shoes. They told me about Jeff Galloway’s methods, about taking walk breaks to prevent injury. So, I decided to try one more time, to see if proper training really could turn me into a runner. And it has.
Remember, you need to start with the right shoes.
Before I started running, I walked miles and miles, and I wore the treads down on my tennis shoes working up to speed walking. Anyone who runs will tell you that you should never run without a good pair of running shoes. Without padding in the heel, you’ll jar your knees hard pounding the pavement, and if you have knees like mine, that’s a formula for pain and injury.
The day I stood in the running outfitters store and they measured my feet, watched me walk to see how I distribute my weight, fitted and double checked the fit, I couldn’t help but smile. Stand firm then, I heard the Spirit whisper, …your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace (Ephesians 6:15). It won’t do to run, even to train, without the proper shoes. First the gospel, padded at the heel with peace that passes understanding, then the calling.
Remember, rest and recovery are part of good training. And the right training can take you miles past where you expect.
Kevin and I started reading Jeff Galloway’s book Marathon: You Can Do It!, after my brother recommended the Galloway method for training. I have learned the value of walk breaks, even during a race. When I run, I run three minutes and then walk one. Resting my muscles that one minute allows me to improve my pace in the other three. Right now, I average six miles per hour, and each week, as my muscles grow stronger, I run a little faster. My training schedule also alternates walk days with run days, and I finish the week with a longer run. Every week builds in a recovery day with no strenuous exercise at all, just rest. And once I work past ten miles on my long run, I’ll only run it every other week.
And at first, this was all very counter-intuitive for me. I like to push myself, especially when it comes to exercise, and I have this bias against cutting myself any slack. I find it so much easier to extend grace to other people than to offer it to myself, even though reveling in God’s abundant grace is my lifeline and my hope. I didn’t like the idea—all those pauses for rest and recovery, but I tried it because it represented my last chance to run. The understanding that rest is as essential to training as effort has been the hardest of lessons for me.
But I have discovered that this methodical, patient training works. All this running and my knees no longer radiate with pain after the effort. My muscles recover, grow stronger, push further. And I am reminded that God’s waiting, His preparing, His call to rest too—all these things are worthy of my patient and disciplined attention. If I want to be ready to run life’s marathons with God and run them well, I must learn to allow Him the time and space to transform, strengthen, and replenish my spirit. I must give Him that still space to ready me.
As I run, I am learning to see the seasons of our life a little differently. I am struggling with the truth that somewhere in all this running there must be walk breaks for recovery, even in the middle of the race. And right now, we race. The road stretches long and hard, and my muscles tire. And the closer I come to the finish, the more call I feel to sprint. But at the end of this race and before the next will come another season of training, and I will need to run three and walk one, to alternate walk days with the run days, to incorporate recovery days with no strenuous activity at all. I will need to wait upon the Lord, that He might renew my strength, that I might soar on wings like eagles, run and not grow weary, walk and not be faint (Isaiah 40: 31).
Remember, you need the right fuel.
The leaner and more fit our bodies have become, the more we train, the more we’ve come to see food as fuel to build, replenish, and move. We’ve learned a lot about what to eat to burn fat but not muscle, how to prepare for greater levels of exertion, improve stamina, feel better. After a run, there’s a half hour window during which the body uses nutrients far more efficiently to replenish itself. It takes a 4:1 carbohydrate to protein ratio to give the body what it needs to restore glycogen levels and to build and repair muscle tissue.
And the further I run the race with Christ, the closer I come to Him, the more desperately I need Him. It’s no accident that He called Himself the bread of life, the only real nourishment for the soul, the only permanent sustenance (John 6). Running with God, I see this, that I must consume Him, dwell in Him, be filled only by Him.
And now that you’re ready, just go.
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It’s true. Just before I begin something amazing, there’s always that reluctant moment, the I’m-not-sure-I-can-do-this pull of inertia. I feel the hesitation, the drag, the fleeting consideration of remaining, of not-doing, nearly every day before I run. But in the last seconds, I toss aside the thought and push myself out the door. Just go. And when God calls and I am reluctant to join Him in the amazing, in the thing I know I’m not really able to do without Him, the Spirit nudges past the remaining. Just go.
Press on. The first mile is always the hardest.
It seems like between runs, my body forgets. I start off walking for a minute to warm up, and then, when it’s time to run, I do this odd little dance that’s supposed to be running but isn’t quite. My right knee panics, sharp complaint making me hop to my toes. And then thirty seconds later, I’ve found my stride and then have to remember how to control my breathing. Sometimes the over and over stumbling, the odd little dance I do when God calls me to get out and run, screams the spiritual lie: failure. Every season, we forget how to run, and it takes the first mile, Him smoothing out our stride, Him teaching us how to breathe again, Him running beside urging, before we find our pace. Faithfully, He teaches me to relax into it and let Him change me, let Him teach me again, over and over, how to run the race.
It’s wise to consider that the path looks entirely different coming from the opposite direction.
It amazes me how everything changes with a tiny shift in perspective. I love this about running through neighborhoods, the way that I can turn around, run down the same street, and the landscape blends into a new painting in a new medium. Even the ground feels different under my feet as I discover hills in the place of valleys. And the run teaches, the Spirit speaking wisdom. This too the way with people, this too a thing of beauty rather than an inconvenience. We run the race from all different directions, countless perspectives converging on the same course, sweat pouring down every face, breath coming hard, everyone struggling to finish. Grace requires us to recognize that each might see the path differently, some feeling hills where others feel valleys, our eyes drawn to different details. Foolishly we expect other people to see life the way that we do, that it should feel the same way to them beneath the feet, though they meet us on the way coming from the opposite direction.
Though the hard road stretches long, it always glitters.
Running on sunny days, I remember the promise of golden streets and a jeweled city, a lake of sapphire surrounding the throne–the inadequate effort to describe heavenly splendor in earthly terms, that the dull and blinded might still see, though dimly. And I love the way the asphalt glints in sunlight, as though God opened up his hand and scattered the paved road with diamonds. I always wish I could capture the way that looks, the path sparkling long, all that hard gray decorated with light. God redeems my eyes and helps me see that this is always His way. Every race route tossed with His treasure, His hand open, throwing piles and piles of His wealth at our feet. Run, run, run, He urges, the Spirit whispering, press on, all the while opening our eyes to see the gifts He pours out, glinting like diamonds on the long and winding road before us.
There’s nothing like knowing you’re almost home. Finish well.
Those who die in the Lord share a common cry: How long? I’ve seen that look in the eyes of the almost-home, heard their cracked voices saying it takes too long, and I’m ready. Sometimes they see Him near where the rest of us see nothing, and they speak to Him, call Him by name, tell Him they are ready now, that they can’t go on much longer. I think of this often turning the corner toward home, pushing my now tired legs through the last mile. As I round the last turn, I always sprint, so happy to see the finish, not wanting to reach it slowly. Oh to finish the race well! I want to press on through the weary last mile, through the pain of muscles and life poured out, to crave the joy of the finish so deeply and see it so well as to sprint all the way to the throne. And that pain? It’s the refiner’s fire.
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Because in the end, all the stuff of this life is about one thing: redemption, the echo of what He’s done, the holy cry repeating truth.
Behold, I am making everything new.
I know you’re tired. But we’re almost home. And don’t you hear Him, running there beside you, urging? Come now, just run to the next mailbox.
