Happy Monday, friends! Welcome to the Abiding Space blog, and thank you for hanging with me as I take over for a few weeks. I’ve been sharing about the spiritual lessons God has taught me while running. If you’ve read my previous posts, you know that these lessons actually have very little to do with running. They’re the mental shifts I’ve made in prayer, and new ways I’ve experienced God’s presence, and the movement of the Holy Spirit as I run. You can try these mental shifts anywhere, though! So even if you’re not the least bit inclined to run, I hope you’ll find something encouraging and worthwhile.
If you’ve ever taken up running, or any exercise really, you’ll know that discomfort is part of the process. If you’re never uncomfortable, then you’re probably not improving. That’s just how exercise works. We actually build our muscles up by making little tears in the muscle fibers. As our muscles repair, they rebuild thicker and stronger than they were before. But that tearing and rebuilding process is uncomfortable.
I’m sure every runner has their own pain points and weak spots. For me, it’s my hip flexors. My poor little baby hip flexors are trying to end my run long before my brain or any other muscles are asking to be done. When my hip flexors start to protest, and I’m not ready to stop running, I buy myself extra time by checking in with the rest of my body.
“My hip flexors are tired. Man, I want to quit. But my shoulders are relaxed right now. My quads aren’t burning. My breathing feels under control. My calves are fine.”
And instead of focusing on my sad, little hip flexors, I choose instead to focus on a part of my body that feels fine. Maybe I can zero in on relaxing my shoulders. And before I know it, my hip flexors don’t feel as bad because I’m not giving them much attention.
Now, to be clear, we’re not talking about ignoring injuries here. I’m not avoiding a real problem. After years of running, I’ve learned to tell the difference between pain and soreness. Running through soreness is fine; my muscles will recover. Running through pain is dangerous and leads to greater injury. This is a mental shift to push through discomfort, not to discount real points of pain. And as we map this mental shift onto real life, the same applies. If you’re in a destructive, dangerous place – an abusive relationship, an illness you’re avoiding the doctor about, a job that eats incessantly at your rest and your mental health – close this webpage and find professional help. I’m not at all suggesting you circumvent real danger with a mindset shift.
Sometimes, though, we dwell on everyday problems – a tiff with our husband, a slight from a friend, being overlooked for an opportunity at work – and by doing so, our problems consume our every thought. We latch on to negative experiences and everyday stressors. We think that God is silent when our prayers go unanswered, we think that He’s forgotten us, or He doesn’t really have our best interests in mind. Charles Spurgeon said, “We are too prone to engrave our trials in marble and write our blessings in sand.”
What if we decided to remember God’s blessings, instead of dwelling on that unanswered prayer? What if we called to mind the times and places we’ve experienced His faithfulness when we’re tempted to think He’s forgotten us? What if we thought about that encouraging coworker instead of the frustrating one, the sweet inside jokes we share with our husband instead of the careless words we exchanged this morning? I think we’d find that our problems won’t loom so large if we don’t give them as much mental run-time. I think we’d go further; we’d go to new places with the Lord if we insisted on gratitude and gratefulness instead of cynicism. Pain points will come. Discomfort is guaranteed in this life. But we can move forward, with God’s help, through the discomfort, and we can choose to place our blessings at the forefront of our minds.
