Training for and completing this 5K race has become a personal goal of mine. For me, it’s really been an act of obedience to God for three reasons:
1) It’s out of my comfort zone.
2) It’s something that I never imagined I could do (physically).
3) I know that God is trying to reveal something to me about his power and my ability to fully trust Him.
God has already shown me so much in the few weeks since I started training. And I’m going to be honest; it’s not been as hard as I thought it would be initially. My handy app lets me know when to run and for how long and I simply blast my music and do my thing. Now for someone like me that’s a beginner, this is an accomplishment. But yesterday, after a few weeks in-what I had been waiting on finally happened…
It got hard.
And I don’t just mean Oh I don’t feel like running today hard. I mean like painful hard. I didn’t even make it the first ten minutes and my shins were on fire. My cheeks were burning from the cold air. My feet were so heavy I thought at any point I was going to take a nose dive right there on the street. And I wasn’t prepared for it.
My first impulse was to stop, throw my hands up and say “Lord, I’m sorry. I tried, but this hurts too much. I quit.”
But I didn’t want to quit. I wanted to push through the pain so that I could finish my run. So instead, I prayed Lord, take away this pain I’m feeling. This is beyond my physical ability now. Just take the pain away so I can focus on my run and focus on finishing.
But the pain never fully went away. What I did learn to do though, is adapt to it. I had to make a decision then and there. Was I going to continue and push through the pain or was I going to let it get the best of me?
Sometimes we’re going to have to push through the pain. It’s going to hurt. We may cry. We may question why. We may even want to forget the whole thing all together and just quit.
But don’t stop pushing through the pain.
Because God’s word tell us that after the pain comes joy. What a testament to God’s power and our faithfulness to him to say “I have come through the pain and now I feel joy!”
Could God have taken my pain away that day and made my run easier?
Absolutely.
Did he?
No.
And I’m not going to try and start a guessing game as to why; because well…we don’t know why he has us go through the pain sometimes when he could take it away. His reasons far outweigh my own understanding. And often we aren't prepared for the pain we experience. It comes in the form of something we aren't expecting: a death, job loss, a marriage vow broken. When we don't expect the pain it can be even harder to push through or to understand why.
Are you trying to push through the pain of something in your life today?
I know it’s hard.
I know it hurts.
And I know that right now you want to quit.
Keep pushing.
It is not by our strength alone that we can come through the pain. The power of Christ alone will compel us forward to a place of true joy. I pray that today you’ll be encouraged to keep pushing through whatever pain you're going through because joy WILL come in time...or after your run.
...Weeping may last through the night, but joy comes with the morning. Psalm 30:5 (NLT)
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