Marathon Training Lesson #1

Throughout my training, some days of running were great and some were awful. Some days I felt I could keep going forever, other days I just willed myself through it, counting down the minutes until my run was over. Now, if I had began 'focusing' on those down days too much, I would have gotten in a discouraged state of mind and this would have began affecting all of my runs. then, I would have felt defeated before I ever began running, because discouragement breeds discouragement. Instead, when I had a bad run, I had to let it go and remember the next day was a new day full of new hope. Marathon training is up and down; it's a process, full of successes and full of failures. Every run is definitely not going to be perfect. In fact, often the hard runs are where I learned the most about 'coping', and those lessons will probably be what gets me through the real race.



All of this made me reflect on my own life. I have and will have many successes and failures along the road of life. I am a flawed, imperfect human being who is going to make many mistakes. Even as I try to live my life for the Lord, so often I am going to get it so wrong, even if my heart was to get it right. But God does not want me to stay focused on and 'sit in' those failures. He wants me to learn from mistakes but than move forward, focusing on what lies ahead and live life to the best of my ability--for Him. And if I let them, those failures are going to help shape me into a person with more character and wisdom for the next curve in the road of life. I also can't live in the successes, or I am going to become puffed up and full of myself and start relying on myself and not Him. The point? I've got to keep on, keeping on, not focusing on the circumstances of the moment, but choosing to keep my gaze on Jesus every step of the way.

Lamentations 3:22-23: The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning;great is your faithfulness.

Philippians 3:12-14: Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus."