I've heard this metaphor about life several times, but God has been reminding me a lot of this recently.
I would love to run a marathon, a half-marathon, heck--even a 5K, but I'm not the greatest with endurance. I'd much rather run and walk in alternating intervals than stick it out for 30 straight minutes of jogging. I've noticed this exact parallel in my walk with Jesus. It's so much easier to have short-lived excitement after a great church service or Bible study than it is to seek out the joy of the Lord on normal day-to-day basis. It's easier to have amazing quiet times on a weekend retreat than it is to seek out quietness for the Lord in the busyness of a workweek. Easier, but not better.
In the same way, as I'm trying to be disciplined about diet and regular exercise, I get frustrated when I don't see the immediate results I want. Oftentimes my "feeling good" about myself is short-lived. I think I'm that way in my relationship with Jesus: I really am following him for a little while, and then I seem to throw discipline out the window and stray away from intimacy with him. Perhaps this is because I don't "feel" his presence or don't see the answered prayers I want to see. And because I forget there's a battle to fight and a marathon to run.
So what to do? I think there's an Almighty Two-Step Plan for Endurance that God's been laying on my heart. First, I don't need to rely on my feelings so much. I never want to completely disregard my emotions, but so often I depend on them instead of God's truth. I know this involves the discipline of memorizing Scripture. Secondly, I want to regularly remember who God is and my identity in him. Being reminded of his freedom, I desire to be disciplined in my relationship with Christ in the way that I try to be diligent about being physically healthy. If I can convince myself that working out and eating healthy will help me be more physically fit, even if it takes a while to see and feel a difference, then surely my spirit can be at peace knowing that daily walking with the Holy Spirit will not be fruitless. My eyes can be fixed not on what is seen, but what is unseen and eternal, which is a relationship with God and the hope of spending forever with him.
Lord, thanks for wanting me to finish the race well. I cannot run it on my own strength. I desperately need your discipline all along the way to remind me who you are and who I am in you. Thank you that I'm not alone in this marathon, and that you're always a step ahead.
