That the One Who Reads It May Run

It’s about time for this post.  It has been a long 6 months without running and a whole lot has happened in life in that time.  In the fall after the surgery Wyatt’s cross country season buoyed me for a couple of months, but then November and December were rather bleak as I trudged through physical therapy.  By Christmas time I was cleared by the doc to use the elliptical machine which, as bad as it is, is infinitely better than swimming!  From January 2 until the present I’ve been ramping up my work on the elliptical machine and pushing myself as much as I’ve been able, trying to put myself into a position of the best possible aerobic fitness for the first day of running, March 21. 

In the last three months I’ve been blessed to enjoy Josiah and Cade do very well in their basketball seasons, but professionally life has felt really challenging.  Some of the company leadership seems generally to believe that they know more about running than I do, and it seems I’ve had to argue and debate and defend just about every idea and thought I have uttered.  Then, after my excellent boss announced earlier this month that she is leaving, I decided that capitulation would be the best strategy for continued survival.  With my personality I don’t know if this policy is sustainable in the long run, but why take the personal risk?  At the end of the day, they write me a check to do what they tell me to do.  I think I can accept that, but the whole situation at work has been very stressful on me and on top of all that I have been locked out of running, my most potent stress-relieving drug.  Very significantly, in addition to this yet there has been marital tension and difficulty. 

Above it all, supremely above everything, has been the spiritual struggle to keep the faith.  There is so much to say in this regard, but to boil down the struggle to the key points that I believe Jesus has been trying to teach me I think these are they:

• Lay down your pride.  Surrender your ego completely.  Bring it to the altar and let it be killed.
• Trust Me.  If I am for you, who can be against you?
• This struggle is spiritual, not physical.  It may be that people have hurt you; it may seem that I have been harsh with you, but your real enemies are spiritual forces of wickedness in high places, arrayed against your joy and your faith.  Do you trust Me?  How will you respond?
• Forgive
• Forebear
• Release
• Pardon
• Show mercy
• “Humble yourself under the mighty hand of God and in due time He will lift you up.”  “Submit therefore to God, resist the devil and he will flee from you.”
• You need My Life in you.  More than anything else – more than My power, more than My peace, more than My joy, you need My life in you, coursing through your veins.  I am the Vine, you are the branch.  Apart from Me you can do nothing.
• Hope!  See, I am doing a new thing, and you will be astonished at how the story will turn out. 
• Be thankful!  What a rich man you are!

I was scared to death that my first day of running last week would reveal pain in my knee and I was scared to death about what that would mean, but thank God, He was merciful to me.  At 6 a.m. on the first full day of Spring I joined a colleague from work and took my first few tentative steps as a runner reborn, and then as we got underway with a real running stride I noticed that there was no pain in my knee.  Thanks be to Christ, the One who is healing me. 

Two Sundays ago our worship pastor shared some thoughts from the Old Testament book of Habakkuk.  His basic point from the Scripture was that God would indeed accomplish what he was going to do – sometimes we need to be patient and wait for it.  I was intrigued and have been reading the book over for the last several days.  It’s a quirk of translation [NASB] I’m sure, but this is what my eyes have been drawn to these last many days.

“Then the Lord answered me and said, ‘Record the vision and inscribe it on tablets, that the one who reads it may run.  For the vision is yet for the appointed time; it hastens toward the goal and it will not fail.  Though it tarries, wait for it; for it will certainly come, it will not delay.’”

“Though the fig tree should not blossom and there be no fruit on the vines, though the olive should fail and the fields produce no food, though the flock should be cut off from the fold and there be no cattle in the stalls, yet I will exult in the Lord, I will rejoice in the God of my salvation.  The Lord God is my strength, and he has made my feet like hinds’ feet, and makes me walk on my high places.”

The core message is that God will do what He will do and I can bank on that, trusting in His sure promise that He causes all things to work together for good for those who love Him.  Habakkuk concluded that God could be trusted and that even in the most discouraging of circumstances he would still praise God and rejoice in Him. This is certain, and this is the core of God’s key message to me.  But what about running like a deer?  In spite of my questionable exegesis I am hopeful, even suspicious, that maybe this is also God’s message to me.  We’ll see how the story now ends, but in life, in love, in faith and in running, I know God wants me to trust that “the vision is yet for the appointed time; it hastens toward the goal and it will not fail.”

Therefore, in the words of Eric Clapton, “Oh, I have a flame.  Feel it touch my heart, and down at my core is the hottest part.  I can run without fear.”