A Schedule

I have come to realize why I like running so much. I am a goal oriented person.  Accomplishing short term goals make me feel successful. Besides the fact of 20-30 minutes with nothing but my thoughts, the endorphins that kick in, and the energy produced afterward, the beauty of a training schedule is an excellent thing.

To have a road map of sorts put before you telling you exactly what you need to do each day in order to accomplish a given goal is incredibly attractive to me. One of the many great things is that it is nearly self guiding. It takes so much of the guess work out of how to be ready to cross the finish line. It completely puts the ball in my court. All I have to do is decide weather or not I'm going to do it. That is the blessing AND the curse.

Last January when I was still deciding weather of not to run a half marathon, Mike and I had a conversation that made me so mad at him. I wasn't fully convinced yet that I could run the whole thing, I am a run/walk kind of girl as of now. But my friend was committing to run the whole thing and I just wasn't sure I could do that. So as I was wrestling it out in my mind and with Mike and he said to me; "You're not gonna run it."

"What?!" How dare he call me out like that! He proceeded to tell me the truth about myself and how I had already given myself an out to run/walk it. I was so frustrated with him because he was right. My friend was running it, not run/walking it and I really wanted to train with her, but I knew if I didn't run it, that wouldn't happen. So, I had to decide if I really wanted this. Because if I did, I was going to be run/walking it and the training would be on my own.

So I committed to do it. I committed to train, to race, to finish. And it would be by myself. It was up to me every day of training to decide if I was going to do it or not. I had to resolve that this is what I was going to do and like Nike says, just do it.

I am discovering that my walk with Jesus in one way is exactly the same. I have a road map before me in the scriptures and an endless amount of resources to help me read it, study it, and digest it if I care to find one. The schedule is really very simple.

Get up.
Die to myself.
Find my life in Jesus.
Enjoy the day. 

It's just a matter of deciding if I really want to do it. No one's gonna make me and a divided heart will not get me across the finish line. It will only happen when I truly decide that the reward is greater than the sacrifice.

And it is.

Then he said to them all: “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me." Luke 9:23