Spiritually Running

I had planned on writing this blog tonight about why I enjoy running, I was going to talk about how running used to be a chore, now it is something I look forward to. What I didn't realize is when I sat here tonight, I would be asking myself the question of Why I have been running title for an entirely different reason.

I have stated many times that my goal is to get healthy physically, mentally, and spiritually and I have achieved a lot. Physically, if you are following the blog, you already know what I have accomplished. Mentally, I have reduced the TV and increased the reading among other things and I feel like I am growing in that area. It is spiritually that I have been running and not in the healthy way.

I have never hidden my faith on here, but I have also never wrapped myself in it. Just in case I have never made it clear, I am a Christian who has been saved by God's amazing grace. That has never been a label I have shunned, it has however sometimes been little more than a label. I don't have an amazing testimony, like most people who are raised in the deep south I spent most of my childhood in church and one Sunday morning at tiny little Anding Baptist Church during "Just as I am" I walked down the aisle and prayed a simple prayer.

For many years I took the "thou shalt nots" seriously, but never really grew in my faith. it  I think like many people I believed in the concept and tried to follow the rules, but never developed the close relationship with God.I can navigate the Bible pretty well, but despite the years in church until recently I have never had a deep longing to get to know Him. Seems I was running from Him instead.

 I am married to a wonderful woman who was raised as a Christian as well and we have tried to instill the same "Christian values" we were raised with into our 2 wonderful daughters. The thing is, even while doing that, I don't know that I have grown as much spirituality as I should have. You know going to church on Sundays seemed like enough but I never answered the call to serve others or to win souls. Seems I was running from His commissions Even though I have long felt like God has been drawing me closer. Seems like the more he called me closer the more I tried to run away.

I have never run away in the sense of denying him or living an overtly "bad" life. I have ran from him by ignoring the urging, and ignoring the stirrings in my heart and not working with all my heart for a closer more intimate relationship. I never thought God could use me. I know my flaws, I know my background, and surely God knowing those same things knows he can't use me...

It has been almost a year now that he has been really working on me. Tthe stirrings have grown stronger, the urging has become more difficult to ignore. If God can make heroes out of the flawed men and women in the Bible, he can use me, and he wants to. It is Time to stop running from him and start going where he is sending me.

Even though I have come to accept that God wants to use me, and even though Reagan and I have had the conversation with our pastor about what to do now, inside I am still running, I can hide behind time and work commitments, or I can run and hide behind fear; however in The Bible it says   "For God has not given us a spirit of fear and timidity, but of power, love, and self-discipline." 




It is one thing to type a blog and explain to readers why I run, physically. It is an entirely different thing to feel like I have to answer to God why I am running spiritually. 


This may not make a lot of sense to some of you reading this, but I hope it will soon. I hope I can add some clarity soon, For now it is important that I stop running and wait; because "Strength will rise when I wait upon the Lord!"

but they who wait for the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint. Isaiah 40:31