As If

My walk/run today involved some hills.  Expectedly.  I mean, I do live in a very hilly area.  And, although I took my usual route, it came time for me to run, and I found myself on an incline.  And as the ensuing panic fell on me, I asked God for His energy.  Because I was still breathing hard trying to recover from the last running interval. 

Maybe I should explain...

See, I'm training to walk and run for 13.1 miles one Sunday in May so I can help raise awareness and money for the children in Southeast Asia who are literally trapped in sex-slavery and other horribly disgusting evils that no person, much less any child, should even know about.  And, while I am in decent physical condition, I. am. not. a. runner.  I am a *wannabe* runner.  It's who I've always been, with the exception of those two very brief stints during whilch I trained myself to run one and a half miles without hyper-ventilating.  So I am training to split the time between running and walking for that crevasse-like expanse between the starting line and the finish 13.1 miles in May.  My goal is to be ready to run every last tenth of that 13.1 miles next October in what will be my third half-marathon.  So for now, I walk/run.  My goal today was to walk three minutes then run for two.  My first time at that interval.

And I was struggling.  Ugh.  Darn hill, anyway.  So, as I walked, I asked God for the strength to run.  As I walked.  And I pleaded for His energy to run to the stop sign at the top of the hill. 

But instead of taking over my legs and Forest Gumping them into a run, He reminded me that I can't possibly know that He's answered such a prayer unless I let Him show me.  In other words, I had to turn my walk into a run if I wanted His energy to carry me to the top of the hill.  I had to literally step out in faith if I intended to see His answer.  To act as if it were already true.

So I picked up my pace and ran to the stop sign at the top of the hill.  Then I thanked Him for the energy.

I think I ought to live my life like that.  Believing that everything I need for real and true living is already mine  (John 6:35).  Not just believing.  But living as if it were true.  Because.  It is.  I think I ought to live my life like the only thing that really matters is knowing God and following hard after His Son.  Because.  It is.

"The fundamental fact of existence is that this trust in God, this faith, is the firm foundation under everything that makes life worth living. It's our handle on what we can't see."Hebrews 11:1 msg