Running, Endurance, Trials and the Christian Race

As I was finishing up my morning run today, I realized that I had not allowed enough time to recuperate from yesterday's run. My legs were tiring out and felt like I had taken them about as far as they wanted to go today.

I was reminded of a bit of information I had picked up in a running book recently - if I'm going to run longer distances, I need to develop muscle endurance. 

Muscle endurance isn't dealing with the strength of muscles. It speaks of a particular muscle's ability to perform a particular activity for a prolonged period of time.

Now, there's a lot of variables that go into a muscle's ability to endure. But, when you boil it down, to build muscle endurance, you have to run long distances. Pure and simple. To get your leg muscles to take you on a 3 mile or 10 mile run, you've got to train your muscles to endure for that long by running those distances. 

As you are training, your legs are going to get soar. You're going to feel tired the day after. You've got to make sure that you consume some carbs immediately after the run and make sure that you're taking in more than the amount of water that you lost on your run. You've got to do muscle stretches.

But, to build endurance, it's really not that complicated. You've got to just get out there and put in the miles.

Knowing that one day I will run much longer distances, I fought through the discomfort this morning. While my left calf was beginning to ache and I realized that I did not have nearly as much energy today as I did on yesterday's run, I fought through it.

Why? Because the pain today means gain tomorrow! I'm building muscle endurance with every run I take. 

And that's when it hit me ...

That's a lot like the Christian life. The Christian life is a runner's race (see 1 Corinthians 9:24-27). To effectively run it, we've got to develop endurance.

And guess what. God almost ALWAYS takes us through difficulties to build that endurance.

But, take joy in the fact that as you go through those trials, it's God's way of equipping you to build the endurance you need to be victorious in your Christian race!

James 1:2-4 "Consider it a great joy, my brothers, whenever you experience various trials,  knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance. But endurance must do its complete work, so that you may be mature and complete, lacking nothing."