Why Running Isn’t Always a Good Idea

I’ve always wanted to be a runner. When I drive by one of those women with the swishing ponytails, glistening skin, bulging calves, and adorable running outfits taking in the beautiful scenery while they breathlessly cover miles, I want to be them! I decide right there and then that the next day I will start and when I find myself on the trail lungs and legs burning and having only barely covered a mile, I realize anew how much I actually hate running. I remember trying to be this vision of a running goddess shortly after having my first child and going to my Dr. with a swollen and stiff knee, he said running isn’t always the best choice for everyone. The continual use of the same muscles can take abuse. There it was! The out, I needed, sometimes it’s not always best to run! Hallelujah! Total respect for all of you runners out there, most of the time I still wish I were you, but sometimes in life it is freeing to just be honest with oneself.

The winter months can tend to bring a sense of discontentment. Often when we are having these emotions, we can guilt causing us to run from God instead of to Him. Being honest with God about our feelings within our struggles can bring freedom. Sometimes God has us in a tight season for a purpose. He’s promised that “His plans for us are to prosper us not to harm us” Jer. 29:11 There are seasons when we aren’t released from something hard no matter how much we would like to run from it. Take Jonah for instance he didn’t want to go where God wanted him to go and didn’t want to say what God wanted him to say, but running didn’t really work out for him either. As the Lord has reminded me twice the last few days Jeremiah 29:11 doesn’t end there; it finishes by saying, “when you seek me wholeheartedly.” There are often times that in our discomfort we shift our energy to an escape plan instead of a seeking God plan. It is like an itchy sweater that you can’t wait to shed, but if you are out in the elements and remove it prematurely then it leaves you exposed.

David writes, “The boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places” Ps 16:6. Maybe the pleasantries in your situation are not the hard tight spots you are in, but what the trial is bringing out in you. In the book of James God says, “to consider it pure joy” in “various kinds of trials”. Some seasons of life will feel like we can barely keep our head above water, some will try our patience, and some will just be like an annoying gnat we can’t wait to be away from. I have had painful seasons of loosing a single parent to an early cancer death and my own battle with cancer, and I’ve had other seasons where my trials would not of been recognizable to the outside world, but no matter the intensity I only got through them with the Lord’s strength. They will vary in kind, length and intensity, but no matter what trial you face God promises to bring some beautiful things out in you through them. James 1:3says that the reason we can have joy in our trial is that it “develops perseverance which must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete lacking nothing”. In Peter 1:6-7 God puts it this way, “for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials these have come so that your faith more valuable then gold” can grow. Or Romans 5:3-5, “we know suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character and character, hope. And hope does not disappoint us!”

Did you hear all those great benefits of not running if God isn’t releasing you from some sort of trial or tight place whether a trying relationship or job, financial strain, or a physical ailment? In your wait for rescue, release or healing you can hang onto the promises of:

Perseverance

Maturity

Completeness

Faith

Character

Hope (a hope that won’t disappoint!)

The next job might end up a disappointment or the next relationship a flop or a new city an even harder financial struggle, but when you chose not to run out of obedience and trust, then the hope you come out with won’t disappoint you.