Idled by Idolatry

Recently I encountered a moment of deep conviction upon my running life.  It is an interesting thing to me, because it was a conviction about my own idolatry.  That’s right, IDOLATRY.  

In modern times idolatry seems like an almost non-existent practice, yet nothing could be further from the truth.  In days gone by, among tribes in lands most of us never encounter, idolatry consists of people “less enlightened” than ourselves worshiping a fashioned piece of wood, stone, or metal made into the image of some thing, some animal, or maybe of some-one.  For more “civilized” societies, idolatry seems like a silly topic, yet I have heard preachers preach against it most of my life... for that matter, I have preached against the principles of idolatry myself.  We often use sports and money to illustrate idolatry for such sermons.  I never think I’m preaching to myself on this topic.

Idols can be good things in our lives.  Not the idolatry itself, but the objects of it.  My children are good things in my life, they should not be my idol.  My job is a good thing to have, it should not be my idol.  Food is a good thing, it can be an idol.  Likewise, exercise, with all its benefits, can be an idol in our lives.  Anything I place in priority over my God, is an idol.

Strange as it may sound to some of my readers, I believe God wanted me to start running.  I believe the Holy Spirit compelled me to do so.  There is no doubt there were some personal revelations and physical motivators involved (See Weak One on Day 1), but ultimately I believe they were simply measures God used to get my attention to tell me to run. 

One of the surprising discoveries in the process is my personal enjoyment of running.  I really do like running. I know! Who knew!  I like the personal achievement I feel.  I like the stress relief it brings.  I like the physical energy I have gained.  I like the loss of pounds that has occurred.  I like what I have seen along my running routes, the sunrises I have witnessed, the personal praise and prayers to my creator as I reflect.  I like the personal applications I have made in the process.  I like it all.  In fact, after completing the training of my C25K app I immediately downloaded the next app in the series and began running towards the 10K goal.  I was amazed at the progress I was making and excited to not only have hit the 5K goal (3.1 miles), but then to run 5 miles.  Then to run 5 miles again... and again... and then even farther.

The five mile mark is kind of a cool mark to me.  I feel proud of the fact that I can.  I think back to the struggle of reaching a single mile - it was hard to imagine five.  I know there are marathoners and triathletes and tough-mudder runners out there that are doing far more exerting runs, but all of them hit the five mile mark at some point.  Even from the perspective of their accomplishments, I know they haven’t forgotten what it felt like to reach their first five miles. They know how I feel.

But then... God spoke to me again.  I was at the point of being just a 1/2 mile from the 10K mark in my running.  I had about two weeks of training time left on my app.  I had already looked at downloading the half marathon training app the night before.  But God convicted me.  In the quite, cool, sweat dripping, rhythmic, serenity of one of my runs God said “I didn’t tell you to run 10K”.  

Wait!!! What?!?  I chose not to listen.

The next run that week was exhausting. I was having an awful time. I actually ran my fastest time ever to the 5K mark, but then fell apart after that.  Each step seemed grueling.  It was almost like day one all over again.  My side began to hurt.  My legs felt feeble beneath me.  I felt more out of breath than ever and decided to stop and walk back home after having only run 3.5 miles.

Once again in the stillness of what was now a walk home, God spoke to me again and said “I didn’t tell you to run 10K”.

Simple as that.  He cleared me to run 5, NOT 10...but why?  Because of my own idolatry.

You see when I started, I found myself more disciplined spiritually as well.  I found myself less neglecting of time alone with Him.  I would return after a 30 minute run and sit on the patio reflecting, praying, meditating, and reading my bible more (I have an app for that, too).  I would spend the rest of the hour or so tending to my spiritual walk early in the day.  They were sweet, revealing moments indeed, and I was not doing it for any other reason than enrichment and pursuit of God.  I didn’t use the time to pray for my church or prepare sermons.  I didn’t use it to research biblical history or think about leadership strategies.  It was simply me and God having intimate time together and tending to the spiritual needs and counsel of this broken man.  People think ministers find such personal time easy, but that is simply not true for many of us.  It is easier to rationalize our study and prep time as “our time with God”.  Believe me, there is a difference between the two.

When I decided to go on to run 10K that time stopped.  My 10K training took longer.  It consumed more of my time.  It consumed more of my energy.  It consumed more of me altogether.  I was reveling in my accomplishment and leaving the spiritual exercise behind.  I was driven to achieve my goal and something had to go in order to get it done.  Like many of the people to whom I have ministered over the years, in order to achieve what I wanted to do, I let the spiritual discipline go.  It is a classic example of the flesh battling the spirit inside.  

I didn’t want to stop running farther, but I must.  I didn’t want to reduce my time on the run, but I must.  I didn’t want to feel like I am achieving less, but I must.  For now, it is 5K only for me.  Somewhere down the road I expect God will release me to pursue a new distance.  Until then I will perfect the one I have permission to do, and pursue new distances in my time with Him.

Ultimately, idolatry points back to self.  Even when the idols reflect something of greater power than our feeble humanity, it points back to self because it is the idol we have chosen for ourselves.  We have decided that it is our god, and that very act declares that we hold self as god even though we camouflage it with the image of something else.

1 Timothy 4:7-8

Discipline yourself for the purpose of godliness; for bodily discipline is only of little profit, but godliness is profitable for all things, since it holds promise for the present life and also for the life to come.

Galatians 5:16-17

But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not carry out the desire of the flesh. For the flesh sets its desire against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; for these are in opposition to one another, so that you may not do the things that you please.

Weak One on Day 1

Not long ago, I resolved to get in better shape.  It all started because of a couple of things:

1)  I was playing with a group of children one Wednesday night to the sudden reality that I was severely out of breath within a couple of minutes, and I mean literally two minutes - this is a problem. 

I have young children of my own... very young children.  I routinely calculate out my age as they grow to the troubling awareness that they might have to visit me in the rest home to show me their diplomas when they graduate.

And........

2)  I saw a recent picture of myself sitting at a table full of food.  The picture was a candid shot, so I had not prepared myself by sucking in my gut and convincing the camera that I have a flatter waistline than I do.  Instead, I saw my slumped, poor postured body with a gut....my gut, larger than it should be, touching the table.  It was not a pretty sight to these eyes.

For these two reasons, both in the same week, I decided to make a change.

[It is at this point I feel I should express some sensitivity to others.  I know that I am a guy with a significantly rapid metabolism. I have always been thin.   Even in my times of major illnesses I was only 35 pounds heavier or so.  Most of my life I have been downright skinny.  I know that to complain about my size could be a little insulting [perhaps nauseating] to others striving to lose or maintain weight.  Please know, insult is not my intention.  My intention is to relay a story of personal deconstruction and observations from the journey I am still traveling.  At the same time, heathy is healthy, and out of shape is out of shape.  I am decidedly out of shape.]

So, on a Wednesday was the breathless dodgeball game.  Thursday of the same week was when the picture was taken, and Friday of the same week is when I woke up much earlier than usual with a terribly strong urge to run [insert Forrest Gump reference here].

Here’s the thing.....I don’t run!!!  I have said many times that I run only when chased.  Since I, and the bullies who tormented me in elementary and middle school, have since matured, I have no need to run from chasers.  

I have friends who run, though.  I see their posts on Facebook about the miles or times or races they have run, it seems to be everywhere.  It’s not quite as common as seeing what people have had for lunch, or the pics of summer temperatures, but almost as much.  It’s nowhere near as much as people going on and on and on about their own kids or quoting things they say - oh, wait.  

I must admit, I have somewhat made fun of such posts of runners [just to myself, until now] and have thought why in the world would anybody want to run when you’re not trying to escape?  Nevertheless, running is the notion I had waking up that Friday morning.

So, I have an app for this.  It’s one of those C25K apps [that’s ‘Couch to 5K’ for the not so exercise-app savvy out there].  This one claims to be the official one.  I don’t know if it is, and I really don’t care either; it has been a good app.  It is extremely user-friendly and downright idiot proof if you ask me.  Apparently I’m running for breast cancer because there is a pink ribbon on all the pages.  Either that, or this grown man is using a girls app.  Oh well.

The app starts training with gradual body conditioning that takes the user to the level of running a 5K in only 8 weeks.  Day 1 almost killed me!!!!!  It literally felt like I was going to die.... or, at least have a really bad situation on my hands.  I ended up in the ER that day, no joke.

Not only was I pasty looking and lightheaded, and my chest pounding with a racing heart, but the sharp pains piercing from front to back through my chest seemed almost unbearable.  I came home, tried not to be overly alarmed, shared the news with my RN wife, and was soon being driven to the hospital for tests.

I knew it wasn’t a heart attack, but I was concerned that I was experiencing blood clots in my lung - I’ve had them before and know what it feels like.  At the same time I felt so stupid.  How out of shape must I be that on day ONE of what I think has been as much a spiritual journey as a physical one, I find myself strapped to a heart monitor getting chest X-rays and a CT scan?  I didn’t even want to tell the doctor I had been exercising.  Could I even accurately say I had been “exercising”?  Does day one even count to say “exercising”, or is it just extra activity?  It’s really more like an orientation isn’t it?

I felt even dumber when he said everything looked to be okay.  He said “there could be very small clots in there, but the good news is, those never killed anyone.  Give it a couple of days, and see how you feel.”  I felt relieved, but still dumb.

I’d be lying if I said part of me wasn’t hoping he might tell me I shouldn’t try to run, that would feel like a relief.  It would be an excuse to quit that I could call a reason.  At the same time, I just felt like running was something I was supposed to do.  Personally, I feel like it has been a prompting of the Holy Spirit to do so, and is certainly why it has felt so spiritual to me.  That first day, though taxing and physically scary, was so exhilarating.  I can’t convey the way I felt when I was done [beyond the whole thinking I was going to die part].

As a result, I have been jotting down some of my observations through the process and thought I might share them here in multiple blog posts over time.  All of them together are too many for a single blog, especially from someone who might be called a long-winded preacher from time to time.

But hey, that’s the beauty of blogging - it’s win, win, win, win for everyone:

  

• I get to write about it, which I feel compelled to do - win for me.  
• I finally have activity again on what has otherwise been a dead blog - win for me (and maybe you).  
• You get to read it and laugh at me - win for you.  
• You don’t have to read if you don’t want to - win for you.  We all win.

So, for today, I suppose the observation is simple - starting anew is not always easy.  Whether it is in exercise, or our walk with the Lord, starting anew can sometimes feel more painful than doing the same thing we’ve been doing for so long.  

I told my wife, after going to the doctor [twice so far], that I was seeing the doctors less when I was slothful and lazy.  The truth is, there are pains that come with the progress, those pains remind us of the work it takes to get to a better place of existence.  I know I’m not where I want to be, but I’m not where I was either - physically or spiritually.  I just want to be a better version of me. 

1 Corinthians 9:24

Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one receives the prize? So run that you may obtain it.