It’s a Marathon, not a Sprint

(This is a little long, but I believe there is a payoff)

We are now in mid-December and I am 5 weeks into training for the L.A. Marathon.  If you read this blog, then you are probably aware that I committed to running with Team WorldVision to raise money for a clean water project.  You are probably also aware that I have never been a fan of running for a whole host of reasons going back to childhood – I will spare you the details. I recall once describing a marathon as 26 miles of what the hell am I doing. When I started doing this, I kept asking myself why am I doing this, but with 3 months until race day, I am getting some perspective.

It has been a great learning experience so far and I am sure that I will continue to get more out of it, but this training has kind of become a metaphor for my life.  I began to see some parallels last month while trying to run in the snow in Chicago.  At one point I just stopped and laughed out loud at myself, that happens sometimes when God gives you clarity on things you have been praying about. Lessons on patience, preparation, process and perseverance have been reoccurring themes in my life. (That was unplanned alliteration if you’re wondering).

I laughed because I have come to realize that my biggest problem was my attitude. One thing that I have realized is that my attitude gets worse as I get into deeper waters that I cannot control. I find myself at a place where the things heaviest on my heart are completely out of my control and I sometimes feel like a sitting duck waiting to see what happens next. This is where fully trusting God comes into play. I think of myself as a strong man of faith (that statement in itself seems arrogant, but I don’t know how else to say it), but God is showing me the selfishness and lack of trust within me that is really only exposed by vulnerability. These are certainly uncharted waters for me, because right now I find myself with situations regarding career, family, future and of course, love; though I want to make decisions about my future and plan everything out, I find myself with zero control to do any such thing.

So what does any of this have to do with running?  As I go through the marathon training and draw parallels to each area of my life, I realize that it is my desire to have immediate gratification that has produced in me impatience, anxiety and dare I say it, a sense of entitlement.  All of which amounts to not trusting God or relying on His promises.  The process of running a marathon is literally one step at a time strung together 138,000 times roughly. To actually string together 138,000 steps, you have to be discipline, you have to be patient and you have to be determined. When I first started training, I had a tendency to sprint which is the one thing you cannot do for distance training. Sprinting was my impatience and my desire to have it done now on my terms without any strategy or clarity of vision on what it would take to achieve long distance success. Sprinting also became a metaphor as I pray through situations, I hear the Lord telling me to cool my jets and go at His pace.  “But I want it now” is that attitude He is breaking, at least that is what I am hearing in my soul when I am quiet.

In considering what it means to be patient, I am learning that I need the perspective of preparation, discipline of process and the determination of perseverance.  You do not just wake up one day and run a marathon, you have to prepare.

The Perspective of Preparation is a time of building endurance both mentally and physically.  The training, working through the injuries and fighting the mental challenges to stay the course are all part of the preparation. I have found the mental toughness to decide to do this each day has been good for me though it did not come easy at first.  I am literally preparing to run a race, but I am also being prepared for other long distance races of life.  I cannot tell you what those are because I do not know.  I think I know, but it is a fluid situation as I write here tonight.  I can tell you what I want to happen, but I can also tell you that the things I was praying for a year and a half ago or two years ago are much different than what I am praying for today.  In fact I can tell you that the way I pray and my attitude about prayer has changed quite a bit.  I plan on writing about it soon, but in short I can say that I cannot even begin to pray without Ecclesiastes 5:1-2 coming to mind which convicts me to “draw near to listen rather than offer the sacrifice of fools.”  So in this time of preparation, as I build strength and endurance to run, I am also building a different kind of strength in my faith, in my sanctification and in my mentality (or attitude) to be prepared for whatever course is set before me.

The Discipline of Process has been something that I preach in business, but applying it to what I am doing, not so much. The prospect of running 26 miles seems overwhelming, but it can be very doable by following the process.  It truly is a one step at a time process to build up the strength, endurance and mental toughness to achieve the goal.  There are no short cuts to success, I have to go through the process or I will fail. Basically making a daily commitment to do what I did yesterday plus a little more.  This can seem tedious at first, but you put your head down and you do it and after a while you begin to see measurable progress.  That is probably the greatest motivation to continue on as it builds strength in your soul and you eventually realize that this is going to happen, just stay the course and follow the process.  “Stay the course” has been my mantra in training and in life and it has helped.  Sometimes I run and I literally track the places and times when I would have needed a rest, but now I can keep going and that little bit of knowledge gives me the motivation to keep going.  It also helps with my impatience as I go through the process, with the big picture perspective, it helps my patience because though it appears nothing is happening, everything is happening in the preparation and these baby steps remind me to stay the course.

All of those baby steps in the process add up to A Determination to Persevere.  One of the biggest challenges for me was developing the resolve to fully commit that this was happening.  I have a lot of excuses to quit, some of them are even legit, but I have finally arrived at a point in training and in life where I need to persevere.  The Lord has reminded me on numerous occasions that my ways have failed; whether it was sprinting to short sighted failure or my arrogance of thinking that His gifts were my own doing.  Haggai chapter 1 has a lot parallels to where I was, specifically verse 9 was my bullet between the eyes.  When you allow God’s gifts to take the place of God, He will blow it all away.  These have been hard lessons, but instrumental in fixing my poor attitude.  It is amazing how the right attitude towards a situation can completely change your day to day living, your outlook on life and strengthen your faith.  I am not fully fixed and I still need to take every thought captive, stay the course, follow the process, have the right perspective and persevere, but at least now I am aware of it and I am making good progress.

It kind of makes me laugh because God is now using something that I hated, running, to teach me about my shortcomings in my life, faith and character.  Not only that, but He has changed my attitude towards the tools He is using.  If you would have told me a year ago that I would voluntarily agree to run a marathon, I would have told you “you don’t know me at all” but now I can truly say anything is possible.  If I were to write the script, I can tell you exactly what it would be and the truth is that God may give me those dreams, but I won’t know if I do not go through the process of becoming the man that He desires me to be.  Yes, the Lord will give you the desires of your heart if you are faithful (Ps. 37:4), but our desires are also dictated by the sanctifying process and the things we desire transforms as we grow to be more like Christ.  As I testified earlier, my prayers today are much different than they were two years ago and my desires certainly are much different.  During this time, the most significant change has been a daily commitment to walk with God in prayer, in reading His word, in listening, and apparently now in running.  It has been a long journey to arrive at today, but I am not done, so as I move forward, I just need to keep in mind that life is a marathon, not a sprint!