Running the Race

Sometimes running or working out (or writing) is pure inspiration. Everything flows. When you’re running on an inspirational day, the weather is perfect, your shoes feel great, you have plenty of energy, and you just feel so blessed to be alive. You feel this incredible feeling of freedom and exult in the love of God as manifested in the new day.

Sometimes my run or my workout is nothing like that! It is what I call pure perspiration. It is just getting it over with so that I can cross that off my list—just one more thing on a long list of things to do. Sometimes when I am running on a treadmill, my instinct is to just push that quit button and go home.

Life is like that too, sometimes inspiration and sometimes perspiration. I started off this new year inspired and ready to be the next wonder woman, praying that the pandemic had basically run its course and we could get back on a regular schedule. I am now discouraged, having missed almost two weeks of school, almost a week behind on my Bible plan, and sitting here typing in a living room that looks like an F4 tornado hit it. I have papers to grade, clothes to fold, dishes to wash, teenagers to monitor, and supper to cook. I feel much more overwhelmed than inspired. I feel fragile and have feelings of anxiety and inadequacy.

Sometimes in life we just want to hit the quit button, or at the very least, the pause button. We even feel this way spiritually. Reading our Bibles, going to church, and serving God seems like one more thing on our to-do list. In 2 Corinthians 4: 7-10, the Bible says, “We now have this light shining in our hearts, but we ourselves are like fragile clay jars containing this great treasure. This makes it clear that our great power is from God, not from ourselves. We are pressed on every side by troubles, but we are not crushed. We are perplexed, but not driven to despair. We are hunted down, but never abandoned by God. We get knocked down, but we are not destroyed. Through suffering, our bodies continue to share in the death of Jesus so that the life of Jesus may also be seen in our bodies.”

I know that I am a “fragile clay jar,” for I can do nothing without God. God tells us, however, that we are not to be crushed, driven to despair, or have a feeling of abandonment, and we are never destroyed. We must press on.

I usually do not push that pause button during my run until I meet my mileage, and I am so glad that I follow through with it. Likewise, when I read my Bible, go to church, or do some kind of ministry, I am always so glad that I did it. God always blesses us when we do what he leads us to do.

This week, try to follow His leading and press on. He will make beautiful light shine through your “fragile clay jar.”