The Pain of Obedience

On Saturday, I decided to extend the number of miles I run in one session. For years, I have been running no more than three miles at a pop because of how I trained in high school for track and cross country. We trained short distances. I have only run more than three miles at a time 3 or 4 times in my life, and one time nearly kept me from running forever because of my knee and the pounding it took.

But yesterday, I decided it was time to up the ante and start training for endurance. After my son's soccer practice, I decided to run home from the fields. I clocked out the mileage and it was exactly four miles. Granted it's not a lot more than three, but it's a start. I hope to get up to an average of 6-10 miles, but that will be a while. After mile three, I started to hear that little voice inside that said, "Your body has had enough. Three miles is your limit. STOP RUNNING!"

But then I started to pray. Sounds corny, but I did, mainly because of the pain. I didn't have to pray long before God came back to me with something that hit me like a ton of bricks. I started thinking back to the interactions I have had with my 4-year old son. How my wife and I have been working on him obeying us more. What came back to me was this: "How do you expect your son to obey you if you don't obey me?"

You may be asking yourself why this would come to me during a run? Well, I wanted to quit running. When all was said and done, I didn't want to hurt anymore. I just wanted to do what I wanted to do, do what would feel better. But God was teaching me something. He was pushing me to obey and finish out the run. It was a simple test of my ability to do what God had asked. I felt as though He simply asked me to finish running. Not for Him, not to make me hurt, not to lengthen my endurance, or even bring about a Forrest Gump moment. It was just to see if I would obey when I knew how much it would hurt to do so.

And that's all He asks. That no matter how much it may hurt our ego or our pride or our self-confidence, we must obey and endure the pain. Look at how much pain Jesus Christ endured on the cross for us. To simply finish out a run, talk with someone we don't necessarily want to talk to, or give up something we have earned: is that too much pain to ask us to endure for Him?

Time to honor through obedience,
Jesus Freak Out!