Yesterday I preached one of my favorite passages of scripture: Hebrews chapter 11 and especially 12. The writer talks about the great cloud of witnesses who have "run the race" of faith before us, and how faith helped them complete the race. Now they are the "cloud of witnesses" cheering us on.
I have this scripture on the back side of my runner's id tag. It means a lot to me not just because of these heavenly witnesses, urging me on, but because, since I started running over 10 years ago, and participated in road races here and then, I have found more comparisons between running and faith than I care to admit. Here are a few.
1. Never run beyond your capacity. I was warned time and time again, in books, running magazines. When you run a race, don't sprint out in front at the beginning or you will use up all your energy and have nothing left for the end. So what did I do when I ran my very first road race? You guessed. I got such a thrill passing others that I forgot the warning. Then in the middle they started passing me, and I started cramping up. I ended the race in a heap of pain and exhaustion. Great example of the sin of pride. Pride is such a harmful sin, not just because it exalts you at the expense of others. It also puts you on a pedestal that you cannot maintain. There are various reasons why professional athletes take steroids, but I think it all comes down to pride. And pride has a price: you fall, and the greater the pride, the harder the fall.
2. Use a heart rate monitor to make sure you are running fast enough. This is related to #1. Figure out your "target heart rate" for your age and keep within that target, by using the monitor. This will make sure that #1 does not happen. It also makes sure that you don't run too slow. Many times while I run, my mind starts drifting off to la la land, and I slow down. Having an objective monitor is one of the greatest helps around. My monitor also has a calorie burning counter. Instead of having a goal of running for a certain amount of time, or focusing on how fast I am running, I think about how many calories I want to burn. That keeps me focused on why I am running: not necessarily to be the greatest runner in town, but to lose weight and stay healthy.
In our spiritual paths, we also need objective monitors who can honestly tell us if we are running too fast or too slow. We also need people who can give us the encouragement that we need. This may take the form of a good friend, a prayer partner, another parishioner, a pastor or a spiritual counselor. They are absolutely invaluable. They keep us focused.
This also reminds me of what humility is all about. Humility comes from the root humus, meaning earth. Humble people are not folks with low self esteem, ready to let everybody else and their needs be more important that they are. Humble people are "down-to-earth." They know who they are and what they can do. They don't try to be more than that or less than that. They stay within their target range.
3. Do not think about the other runners in the race. You are not competing against them, you are competing against yourself. Your job is to run the best race you can that day. The last race I did, I was getting back into shape, and was lucky if I could run a 12 minute mile. The winner came over the line half way through my race. Indeed, I spent most of the race running alone. But I didn't mind. I was doing the best I could for where I was physically. That's what God expects of us: not to win the race, just do the best we can with what we have. Grace takes care of the rest.
4. If you get discouraged, think of all those people not running. True, there might have been a hundred people finishing ahead of me, but when I got a little depressed about it, I thought, "I'm running 5 miles. How many people can do that? How many people do that?" Quite a few. The important thing is not that you are doing well in the race, it's that you're actually running it. Same with faith. Even when you get discouraged, just think, you are actually on the path. There are some who don't even know what faith is - many who are living lives with something missing, an emptiness that only God can fill. In races, as in faith, there are participants, there are onlookers, and there are those who have no idea what is going on. Being a participant is the best.
5. Despite being scary, even daunting or terrifying, the hills our your best friends. The best way to increase your physical fitness is to run up hills. Start with the smaller ones and work your way to the big ones. Sometimes tackling the big ones are beyond your physical limits. Sometimes they are just too intimidating to even try. But a good road race goes over hills, that's part of the challenge. The last race I ran went over a very steep hill at the end of Houghs Neck. I didn't try running up it until a couple weeks before the race. I was just too frightened. But the reality of the race was before me, so I knew I had to try. That hill was not only do-able, but not as bad as I thought. Now it's part of my regular running course. If anything is going to make me a better runner, it's that hill.
The same thing applies to the hills that are too scary to run over in our faith life. There comes a time when we have to give it a try. Then hill eventually transforms from our scariest monster to our best friend.
6. A little of something is better than a lot of nothing. I tend to like to do things big. I'd rather take one big trip carrying everything than two trips carrying less. That often defeats me when I run. If I see that I don't have a full our to run, I often give up the idea of running and do something else. This leads to getting out of my routine, losing the good habit of running, and eventually I'm doing nothing. I keep having to remind myself that a half hour of running is just fine. I might not be exercising as many calories away, but I am moving forward, which is the important thing.
Same thing with our spiritual life. Praying for 5 minutes sounds pretty small and inconsequential, but it is something, and it matters. A great spiritual writer once said that if your prayer was only "thank you" that would be enough. Keeping a spiritual discipline every day can seem intimidating, especially when there are expectations in front of you: spend 20 or 30 minutes in prayer, for example. The important thing is to do somethings. A little something is better than a lot of nothing.
7. Pray while you run. Every time I run through Houghs Neck, I pass the houses of many parishioners. I pray for each of them as I pass their house. Then I am reminded of others who don't live close by, so I pray for them. Then I realize that some of these houses have people who desperately need to have God in their lives, so I pray for them, too. I also come up with the best sermon ideas while running. Maybe its the blood rushing through my head, maybe it's the Holy Spirit getting my attention. Maybe both. Sometimes I just repeat a short prayer as I go along, a kind of mantra that keeps going to the rhythm of my legs going over and over again.
8. Getting better at running takes a long time, with a lot of ordinary days where you don't feel particularly inspired or happy. Behind every great runner is a lot of boring, ordinary time. Grinding it out, day by day. Finding the motivation to get through these stretches is one of the greatest challenges for any runner. But if you want to improve you body, if you want to lose weight, it is a long, slow, ordinary process.
Same with prayer. There are days where you would want to do anything else. When you pray, nothing seems to be happening. Any kind of spiritual presence left a long time ago, and you might wonder why you are moving on. It all seems so rote, so routine. But this is the time when you actually do strengthen your spiritual muscles.
9. If you miss a week due to something extraordinary that happens, just make sure you get back to your routine the next week. Sometimes there are injuries that take time to heal. Sometimes your sick. Sometimes it's vacation or family comes to visit and your regular schedule is disrupted. Sometimes I considered these weeks as roadblocks that a devil erects to get me off track. Sometimes I freak out at the prospect of missing time, that something catastrophic will happen. I've learned to look at these in more realistic ways. Life happens. Just make sure that you get back to it when the normal schedule returns.
10. There are people cheering you on, all the time, whether you know it or not. One of the best part about road races are the people that cheer you on. My sermon from yesterday talks about it. If you didn't hear it, I'm posting it below.
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