Wednesday, July 16

Love and Hate Relationship

I have grown to love the New Balance commercial that depicts the love/hate relationship between a runner and their run. I know there are a million youth leader sports scenarios of how sports and races relate to our faith, but as I was running yesterday I was overcome with all the symbolism as it relates to my current journey. About two weeks ago Luke and I started to attempt the long road back to getting in shape. We turned in our gym membership for the fresh outdoor air and I had many disillusions as to trail running and the open road. Luke leads our runs every time to set a pace for the both of us, I know it's a tough job but I am incredibly less disciplined than he is, so better him than me. The problem is that he has long legs that act like eagles wings and I feel like he glides along while I run double the amount of steps to keep up! As we were getting into this routine I was able to start thinking about other things rather than just not passing out. Yesterday we started out the same as always and I noticed a few things that have been paralleling my faith throughout this process to the mission field:
1. When I run I have a tendency to think all the way to the end point where I know I get to stop running and start walking. I even get so worked up about the length of the run sometimes that I don't want to start in the first place! I do this daily when thinking about getting to BFA. I tend to look to the end and wonder how in the world we are actually going to get there instead of looking straight in front of me to the steps ahead. Like running, when I focus on either Luke's back or my actual steps I forget about the end of the trail and start focusing on each step counting towards getting me to the end.
2. I have to focus on breathing evenly every inhale and exhale. The other day we were on a trail in the woods and I had been breathing steadily the whole run, then BAM out of nowhere a HUGE black bug flew into me from the trees. It deterred my steady breathing and it took me 5x as long to catch up with Luke again because of it. The thing I noticed with this is that this is exactly how I have been feeling with my faith towards God getting us to BFA. Most days I have steady faith that He will provide and conquer all the obstacles, but then a critical word is spoken or our financial update isn't as much as I wanted and my faith in God's ultimate victory plummets. It takes me longer to recover than it does to remain steady in His promises.
These little running lessons have spoken to me about the importance of my faith remaining consistent throughout the next few weeks before arriving in Germany. I know myself and I get bogged down with details and big picture hows and whys. It makes it all the more important for me to remain rooted in God's Word and His promises to finish what He has begun. We have been so blessed by our group times and our individual times spent on the phone with many of you. We couldn't walk this path without the faith and prayers of all of you along the way. Just like I couldn't run without Luke guiding and setting the pace:-)
I know this is a little more silly than my normal posts, but it's just a good reminder to me that we NEED all of you! Please keep us in your prayers as the days get smaller for our departure.
In His Grace,
Steph

1 comment:

Mark and Susan Powell said...

Great analogy, Steph. Thanks for sharing it. We are praying for you guys and can't wait to see you again in Germany. I am amazed that you have 29% monthly already! God is good. Blessings, Susan.