I said I would continue on with Scripture, so I shall. If any of you had any concerns with this whole topic, bear with me and please keep reading.
These verses are the best way to describe what God is showing me to do spiritually, and they happen to be about "running."
"Therefore, since we are
surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off
everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us
run with perseverance the race marked out for us."
Hebrews 12:1
In order for me to keep up this running, I need to continually throw off laziness, distractions, lies, and business. These things easily keep me from running and changing my mind. It is so much the same in my spiritual walk. I can be so quick to laziness, distractions, lies, and business in my life that keep me from persevering with Christ.
"I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith."
2 Timothy 4:7
When my 5k is done, I hope I can say this. I hope I kept myself accountable in my routine. I also hope that when my life is coming to an end, I can say this as well. I pray that I can say "I have kept the faith." "I persevered through the tough times and kept myself going toward Christ even when I have a gust of troubles pushing against me to slow me down."
"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."
1 Corinthians 9:24
I don't just run to run. My running has a goal, as I said, for a 5k. To finish the race strong. My running has a purpose, as I also said before, to show myself that I can persevere past my personal comfort and see the goal accomplished that I set before me. This doesn't mean slack off, nor does this mean "it will just happen so I can take it easy." Oh heavens...guys...for some of you the weight does just come off..but for us ladies, that just doesn't happen. I have to PUSH myself beyond limits and keep myself pushing to get this weight off. It takes work. To me, this is a sweet prize for me to be able to say "yes...I can." Failure is only if I quit before the prize.
It is through this motivation that I can also run for the overall prize that Paul is actually talking about here. The prize is at the end of our lives. The race toward Christ is the continuing molding and refining of our hearts til our image reflects Christ's. This doesn't come to completion until the day we end our lives down here and finally come home to our sweet Jesus.
I want to close with something else that I may be sure some of you question about this whole ordeal, and I even question myself sometimes...but I am going to make it very clear as to why I want to lose weight.
Before, I failed at this because I wanted to bring glory to myself. I said I wanted people to notice me, I wanted a sexy bod, I was pretty much okay with being eye candy, thinking I would attract at least 1 good guy in the crowd. Now, I want to bring glory to God because my heart's motives on losing weight is to live out how my spiritual walk should look. Weight loss represents the "impossible" goal that I cannot do alone, and normally would give up on. I am so quick to quit many inner commitments in my life that I don't work through it.
But also, like many good things, it is only a heart-change away from becoming a bad thing. It is easy to make this an idol, just like other things in our lives can be. I pray that my heart will continue to be selfless in this, and that God will continue to speak to me about my spiritual journey with Him through my exercise. If we are called to worship God in everything we do, this is how I would do it through exercising.
I ask that my heart stay pure in my motives, and that the meditations of my heart would be pleasing to my God.
I appreciate the prayers for this. As always, I love you all.
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