"Run with perseverance the race that is set before you", that text for everyone who jogs, runs, cycles, cross-country nordi walking and the many other ways we postmodern car mobile, labour saving enthusiasts, take up the need to recover or maintain the fitness of our bodies. I remember a fitness instructor asking me what I want to be fit for. I had no intentions of entering triathlons, becoming an iron man, or even running competitively. I just wanted to be in good aerobic con dition for my age, a healthy weight, and physically able to do the things I enjoy, from 5 a side football to hill walking and any other activity that is as much fun as can be squeezed in per calorie burned.
There is no need for an advanced science of physiology or a PhD in nutrition. Exercise regularly making sure you stretch beyond what's comfortable, and eat sensibly. Problem is doing this as a way of life rather than as something to be endured in order to have a way of life. I sit a lot. If you write, read, study, and parts of your working life are composed at a keyboard, then chunks of time the body is on under-drive.
All of this had me thinking this morning while I was out running. That early I tend to do a walk / run, and depending how I'm feeling more of the one or the other. The person who wrote that magnificent half-time team talk which we call the Epistle to the Hebrews was a brilliant motivator. He could paint word pictures of the superiority and supremacy of Jesus, the great Encourager, and just as quickly create images of the human Saviour who understands suffering and tears. He knew how to appeal to the longing and ambition of those first followers of Jesus, who wanted to train, to be fit, to play their part in the great commission of living for God in a careless world. And he knew the importance of perseverance, of running the race by putting one foot in front of the other, and not stopping.Look to the Captain he said, look to Jesus the One way out front, and go after him, to the cross, to the empty tomb, to the God-loved world.
When I run in the morning at some point I mutter a Bible verse breathlessly, a way of ruminating, and one of the verses with obvious congruence is "Run with patience the race that is set before you, looking to Jesus, the author and pioneer of our faith". It isn't quite the devotional reverie it sounds; it is muttered through gritted teeth, and given urgency by legs complaining about the lungs needing to work harder. But there is something spiritual happening when aerobic exercise is linked with the day after day discipline of obedience to God, the cost and consequence of following faithfully after Jesus, the sheer toil at times, of perseverance. It helps that the route I take looks across some of the most scenic skylines in Aberdeenshire.
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