Running

So I have been having a really rough week. Emotionally I have just been really down and pretty much spent. I have also been so exhausted. I sleep at least 9 hours a night and sometimes during the day, if I don't drink caffeine often enough, I feel like I can't survive unless I sleep.

All in all, its just been a crazy week. I've found myself crying a lot. I've found myself sleeping a lot. I've found myself going and going a lot.

The one thing I haven't found, is myself in the Word.

I think because the week has been so hard on me, that I've just put off my time with God because I either felt like I wanted to just survive or I felt incredibly tired.

Yesterday, I realized that I had a major issue with how I approached the rough times in my life. I have had a lot of personal things going on in my head. I've messed up and been hurt. But the biggest mistake I made was not turning to Jesus.

There were times intermittently that I would talk to God and come to Him with my hurts, but all in all, I didn't put God has my highest priority. I can know this for sure because despite my busy week, I still made time to work out three times. Spending time in the Word got no time.

Last night I started feeling better, I started feeling like I wasn't just trying to keep my head above water throughout this week and with that feeling, came conviction. How did my actions over the past week reflect Christ as my Savior? I mean I needed help and encouragement this week. A lot of it. Why did I not go to the one that I profess to love the most. It's like I just gave up. In fact, I know I gave up. I was so exhausted from keeping afloat.

As I was laying in bed last night I began to reflect on a bible study (that I haven't done in forever) that I am currently doing on Abraham. I'm only in the beginning parts of it, but one of the key things that is show in Genesis 12-15 is that God rewards obedience to Him. Not rewards like every time you do something great, He will give you something great. But it pleases Him when we are obedient and therefore He rewards us, whether we see the reward now or later.

This led me to really sit and think with God....What is it, specifically, that I need to obey?

The Lord led me clearly to a couple of things:
-I need to fight for my time with Him and with His Word. That means everyday, fight for it.
-I need to extend grace, whether I am given it all the time or not. I need to unconditionally extend grace.
-I need to let go of my pride. There are too many times when I don't extend love or affection because I am too proud to be soft. Or I get angry and bitter when I don't make the best grade, because deep down my pride in my grades is hurt. I need to let go of the pride.

I went to bed last night thinking....neat, cool....now what? I want to change my heart about these things, but how do you do it. Do I just say "heart...CHANGE NOW!" So I fell asleep wondering, how in the world could I help to get my heart right. I decided that I would wake up this morning, run (hopefully waking me up enough to get through quiet time without falling asleep) and then I would dig through these things with the Lord.

Well I didn't even realize that the Lord had plans for my run. He wanted to teach me half of the lesson by running. I still am going to dig in the Word with Him right now, but I wanted to write down what I had learned on my run before I forgot.

I realized that my biggest problem is perseverance. I don't FIX my eyes upon Jesus...upon the Cross...Upon the shame He carried WILLINGLY.

the definition for fix is to settle definitely; determine. A definite settling. My biggest problem is when times get hard, when I hurt, my eyes become unfixed. They are not fixed on Jesus anymore.

This morning, running, Hebrews 12:1-3 became so real to me:

¹Therefore, since we have so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us, let us also lay aside every encumbrance and the sin which so easily entangles us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us,

²fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.

³For consider Him who has endured such hostility by sinners against Himself, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.

I think it is so neat that our christian life is compared to a running a race. Having just run myself, I know that there are points in the run where the wind is beating down on me and I am running probably as fast as I could walk. There are also times when obstacles are in the way...brush, cars, people. All of these times take endurance, to keep pushing.

There is a race set before us. A race hurts sometimes (like when your chest and legs are burning) but we are called to endure because Jesus died on the cross so that we would "not grow weary and lose heart". I grew weary and definitely lost heart this past week. Because it was such a rough week, I decided to start walking and feeling sorry for myself. Not because I deserved it, but because it was easier. It is so much easier to just finish a run by walking. But to endure and finish well, that is where true determination and endurance lies. Choosing to press on, despite hurt.

God has revealed so much to me this morning through this run. I think He has given me a glimpse at how to work on all of those things that I need to be obedient on...I need to endure and persevere and LOOK TO WHAT JESUS DID ON THE CROSS.

There is a race set before you and me...I have to face it. Whether we run or not, it's there. It's not a choice, this is what accepting Christ looks like. It will be us striving to run the race well because it was "set before us". I pray we run it with great endurance. Hopefully when we have weeks like I just had, we run, we persevere instead of walking. I pray that we grab hold of grace and let it be our strength. We could never run this race on our own. We will always grow weary and lose heart if we are on our own. But fixing our eyes upon Jesus andgrabbing hold of the grace He offers us daily, we will not only be refined but we will never grow weary or lose heart.

For me that is such a comforting thing after a week where I truly did grow so incredibly weary and I know that I allowed myself to lose heart.

I'm not so good at memory verses but I think that this is going to be mine for this next week or so. I want this to be my constant encouragement and challenge as I walk through my day.

One final thought to spur us all on. There are two definitions of perseverance on dictionary.com:

1. Steady persistence in a course of action, a purpose, a state, etc., esp. in spite of difficulties, obstacles, or discouragement.

2. Theology. continuance in a state of grace to the end, leading to eternal salvation.

I'm praying for perseverance for us all. Until the end, let us persevere together in this race that has been set before us.