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Train For It
by John Bishop, Director of Spiritual Formation
I’ve been a runner my whole life, and I think part of the motivation comes from a man I never met.
When I was a kid, I would look out the window by my bed as I struggled to get up for school. From that position I could see the road that passed by my house. I remember one morning seeing a man walking by. The next morning there he was again. And the next. And the next. It went on for days. You might wonder why I noticed him. Well, he was a big guy! Definitely over six feet tall and overweight, not the kind of person you would typically see walking by, especially that early in the morning. But there he was, walking.
I didn’t think much about him at first, but day after day, week after week, year after year, he passed by my house. He was committed! I was only a kid, but I found myself rooting for him. After a few months he was walking faster, and I silently cheered him on from my room. There was something inspiring watching this guy follow through with his commitment. Eventually, after a few years, he started jogging a little, slowly at first and only sporadically, and then, as his steps got lighter his pace got more consistent.
This is how it goes. The things we do every day eventually become habits. We have the physical, psychological, social, and spiritual ability to adapt and grow to fit the decisions we make for ourselves and our ever-changing lives. It takes a while when you change schools, for example, to build new routines, establish new relationships, understand the cultural dynamics and eventually fit in. The same is true later in life. You move cities, get a new job, get married, have kids, and each time have to rediscover how these changes require a lot of growth and adaptation. But you make it work, because you often don’t have a choice. But does it have to be this way?
Much of life seems to just happen to us and we find ourselves running uphill into a headwind. We’re out of shape and unprepared and often angry about it! “Why does it have to be so hard?” we think. I’m sure it was like this for this guy walking by my house. He didn’t get into whatever situation he was in all at once; he made little decisions every day that resulted in a life he was not happy with. Because the things we do every day eventually become habits.
My sister texted me last July and mentioned she was running the Miami Marathon on January 28. I couldn’t resist the challenge. In August last year I began training. For my first run, I barely made it three miles at a pace I was happy with. It had been a while since I’d had a regular workout routine, and I was out of shape. For a few weeks I just had to grind it out using a motto “5K every day!” for motivation. It wasn’t awesome.
After committing to the difficult and painful routine of training for it, though, I was eventually able to do every day what I had barely been able to grind out once. We tend to grow into the things we embrace wholeheartedly.
This principle is true spiritually as well. We want to hear God’s voice when we’re in a crisis. We want to experience His love and grace when we fail. We want His wisdom for difficult decisions, but you have got to train for it. You’ve got to spend time talking with God about daily, mundane things to learn to discern His voice, then you’ll discover that in our weakness He is made strong. Sometimes you have to read the Bible every day for six days, six months or every day for six years, before you finally start to understand what he’s trying to say. His ways are above our ways and His thoughts are above our thoughts. We need to train for it if we want His wisdom.
1 Corinthians 9:24-25 – “Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one gets the prize? Run in such a way as to get the prize. Everyone who competes in the games goes into strict training. They do it to get a crown that will not last, but we do it to get a crown that will last forever.”
The summer after I graduated high school, I was in my room packing up my things for college and I noticed that man, running by my house. I’m not sure why, but I got emotional. I had watched that man make a wholehearted commitment and stick to it. I never knew his name, and he never spoke a single word to me, but he demonstrated something I needed to know.
You can change. You just have to train for it. You can take full responsibility for the circumstances of your life, take an honest assessment of the issues that weigh you down, and take the steps required. It may take years, but you’ll eventually be able to do every day the thing you could hardly grind out once. Run to win!
Westminster Christian School, located in Palmetto Bay, Florida, is a private, college-preparatory school for children from preschool through twelfth grade.