Colorado Rockies
As you may have recognized from the picture we are currently in the Colorado Rockies. Today I decided to go for a run, a nice easy three miler. I wore my new shoes, those new fangled ones with the curved heels designed to make you expend more energy when you walk or run. It should come as no surprise that the roads here are not very flat, these are mountains after all. With the altitude being between 7and 8 thousand feet the oxygen was almost as rare as flat roads. Add to these conditions the fact that I have spent most of the past two weeks in my car driving from Clarkston to Greenville back to Clarkston and then here to Colorado. Well all these things ganged up on me to the point that I was reduced to not only running very slowly but I actually walked/jogged/walked/jogged on the uphills, something not easy for me to admit.
Why am I telling you these things? Certainly not because I’m proud of the state of my conditioning, but rather because of the spiritual lesson I learned while out on my run. We tend to go through our lives thinking that our spiritual lives are OK because we are managing to bear up under the normal burdens of the day. Then when difficulties in our lives begin to pile up we shouldn’t be surprised to find out that we are struggling just to get by. Running is of course much less important than our spiritual walk, but here is the lesson I learned today. Had I been striving each day to improve my condition as a runner, coming to the mountains would still be hard but it would have been more manageable.
These arn't just hills!
If while things are going along smoothly we strive each day to improve our walk with the Lord, we would be more equipped to handle the difficulties when they inevitably come. “Be not conformed to this world but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind” is not a command for a onetime event but for an ongoing process. Just as the wise person stores away food in times of plenty and “makes hay while the sun shines” so we would do well to use our days of ease to get “prayed up” and draw close to God. Hard times will always be hard, but hard times when you are walking close to our Lord are less daunting. My body is reminding me today in no uncertain terms that preparation is a good thing.
