Resurrection Sunday

The angel said to the women, “Do not be afraid, for I know that you are looking for Jesus, who was crucified. He is not here; he has risen, just as he said. Come and see the place where he lay. Then go quickly and tell his disciples: ‘He has risen from the dead and is going ahead of you into Galilee. There you will see him.’ Now I have told you.” ~Matthew 28:5-7

This morning at church, the pastor spoke on how people search for fulfillment in the dead things of this Earth, such as knowledge, achievement, or physical activity. The truth of the matter is that we can only find life and fulfillment through Jesus, who is the risen King. We cannot find hope through any other means; not running, not education, nor family. Only Christ provides us with hope.  What comes to mind is the song All Along by Remedy Drive. The following is an excerpt of lyrics:

It's not everything it seems,
The world and it's dreams
Slipping like water through my hands, tonight
All the things I thought would fill me up inside
Left me empty here
And now I know why
All along I was looking for something else
You're something else
All along I was looking for something more
You're so much more
I finally found what I could never see before
You've always been the one that I was looking for

We must never forget the importance of Christ dying on the cross. He was our living sacrifice so that we can once and for all be forgiven for our sins and transgressions. Without the death of Christ, we would not have an intercessor between humanity and the Almighty. Therefore, rejoice in the knowledge that Christ died for you so that you have eternal life. In John 20:31, it is said in this way: "But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name."
So on this Resurrection Sunday, stop looking for answers and fulfillment in places other than Christ because it is a futile search. Instead, relax and rejoice in knowing that Jesus is risen and alive in each and every one of us. The Almighty is a personal God and He will call out to you, just like he did with Mary Magdalene in John 20:16 (Jesus said to her, "Mary."), but you must listen and pay attention. He wants to share in your life, but you must be willing to surrender to Him and trust in the Lord for guidance.

Seeking Forgiveness: Definitely Not an Easy Task

Life lessons, though necessary, are always hard to learn. We go about our days not giving much thought to our actions and thinking that we are doing the right thing to some extent. That is until somebody brings our flaws to light, and we realize that we have hurt somebody drastically and were not even aware. This is much like what Paul reveals in Romans 7:15, which states, “I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do.”

I don’t know about any of you, but when something like this is brought to my attention, I’m completely devastated. A whirlwind of emotions will flow through me, but my knee-jerk reaction is always to just want to run away. The band, Addison Road, expresses this in the following lyrics:
"Run just as fast as you can
Run, 'til you reach the end
Where the fallen finally land
And your world starts over again." 

I think it is mere instinct that we just want to detach ourselves immediately from the situation so that we don’t have to face the facts. This is by no means the right way to handle such occasions; I am just stating that the idea is always in the forefront of my mind. 

After analyzing a difficult situation that you have ended up in due to your actions, whether accidental or on purpose, the best thing to do is take some time to think over the proper way to respond. One should refrain from lashing out in anger, because that will only serve as a means of exacerbating the issue. As difficult as it may be, the only proper response is to seek forgiveness. We must seek forgiveness from God for slipping up and not following in His ways. We must seek forgiveness from the person we have hurt. And we must also forgive ourselves.

Seeking forgiveness is by no means an easy task. The thought of the all-perfect God makes anybody shudder and feel unworthy of His grace, but we must seek His forgiveness in order to be restored. His mercy is plentiful and if we sincerely seek forgiveness from God, He will provide it. Seeking forgiveness from the person whom we have hurt is another difficult task. It is necessary to humble oneself, accept that we are wrong and hope that the person will, in time, find it in their heart to believe we are sorry and grant us forgiveness. 2 Corinthians 2:5-8 illustrates how and why this should occur. The verses go as follows: “If anyone has caused grief, he has not so much grieved me as he has grieved all of you to some extent—not to put it too severely. The punishment inflicted on him by the majority is sufficient. Now instead, you ought to forgive and comfort him, so that he will not be overwhelmed by excessive sorrow. I urge you, therefore, to reaffirm your love for him.”

Searching for forgiveness in any realm is difficult. I hate knowing and admitting to my own screw-ups, but it is necessary. The hardest part for me, though, is forgiving myself. I am my most difficult critic, and I have a tendency to overanalyze my failures. I play the “what if” game far too often and grapple over what I could have or should have done better, instead of trying to look towards the future for hope. So for now, I will look at tomorrow as a new day to try and work on the lessons I have learned and put my hope in the Lord.

"Everything rides on hope now 

Everything rides on faith somehow 
When the world has broken me down 
Your love sets me free."
~Addison Road

The Importance of Rest

In today's society, people tend to forget how important it is to just kick back and relax once in awhile. Instead, we are constantly busy and running around like chickens with our heads cutoff. Phrases such as "time is money" and "no rest for the weary" have trumped "rest and relaxation" in this high-paced, materialistic world.
Rest days are also very important in the realm of distance running. One cannot constantly train and expect results. Overtraining will kick in and one will have more setbacks than breakthroughs once that point is reached. Thus, being conservative in training is typically the way to go when aches and pains arise. I typically am one to savor my rest days and today seems to be a fitting day to blog about rest because I am taking the day off from running. My main reason for rest is the fact that I ran for 2 hours on an indoor track yesterday and my body needs to recover. My two secondary reasons are the fact that it is raining and it happens to be my birthday, so relaxing seems to be the smartest decision all around.
It is also important for our souls to rest and relax, especially when feeling overwhelmed by life. Just at that point where we feel like we are on the verge of collapse from stress, or life in general, is when we should turn to God so that we can take a breather. If you turn to Matthew 11:28-30 in your Bible, Jesus says, "'Come to me, all who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.'" In essence, Jesus is trying to remind us that God is in charge of our lives and that if are just willing to relinquish control and hand everything over to Him, we will find the rest we are searching for. We will never find rest on our own, though. We will only find rest for our souls when we hand over our burdens and take up the yoke of Christ because only His yoke is light. So remember, whenever you feel beaten down in your busy life,  take the time to turn to God and you will be able to kick your feet up and enjoy some much needed rest and relaxation.

Why Are You Trying to Escape?

Runners always get asked why they run. Some do it for good health. Others do it to maintain their stress and sanity. But there are plenty of runners who admit that they run as a form of escape. They want to either escape their job, their home, or even their own reality. Instead of meeting issues head on and trying to determine the best course in life, they choose to escape and avoid making any worthwhile decisions. I'm not saying that this is necessarily bad or that I myself have not done it in the past, but there comes a time when you have to stop trying to escape and actually face the music. For example, I have had to confront the reality of my depression instead of living in denial that I deal with it. Once I accepted that it is a part of who I am, I was able to focus on how I can overcome situations where I become depressed. Instead of outrunning the problem, I admitted that I had one, which gave me the strength to ensure it does not rule my life and define my existence.
I believe that many people desperately try to outrun their past and feel unworthy of Christ's love. This is very unfortunate because the truth of the matter is that Jesus and the Father will love you no matter what. They just want you to trust in them to control your life so that you rely on them instead of your own instincts. "No king is saved by the size of his army; no warrior escapes by his great strength...We wait in hope for the Lord; he is our help and our shield." ~Psalm 33:16, 20. This verse directs us to putting our hope in God because we cannot do anything without Him in order to save ourselves. There is no sense trying to outrun our past when God knows all and is the only one who can truly bring us comfort and help. No matter what you have done in life, Christ is the great intercessor between you and God and as long as you love Jesus and go to him for help, you are never alone. This hope can be found in Hebrews 7:25, which clearly states, "Therefore he is able to save completely those who come to God through him, because he always lives to intercede for them."
My hope is that people will find encouragement through the love of Jesus so that they do not feel the need to run away and hide. It is very difficult going through life feeling unworthy and alone, but we must not forget that God is always their by our side. He wants to bring us comfort and he should be the one that we go to with all of our problems; nobody else truly knows what is best for us. In the face of difficult life decisions, instead of trying to run away and escape, we must always pray and ask for guidance because that is the only way through it all. I prayed a lot when it came to deciding to run my marathon. Some may not feel that this would be a major life decision, but given the mental obstacles it involves me to overcome, it was quite necessary in my mind to ask for guidance.
So the next time you find yourself trying to run away from life for some reason, try to remember that God is merciful and loves you for you. Take Ephesians 2:4-5 ~ "But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions--it is by grace you have been saved." I find this very encouraging to know that no matter how much I screw up, I will always be loved. I am going to leave you with lyrics from the song that inspired this post. It is the song "Come Home" by Luminate.

There's power in the blood of Jesus

Your father's screaming just come home

And He's reaching out His hands

I know you been running, searching for something

But you're looking in a place you don't belong

Well, it's never too late, you can't outrun grace

No, mercy doesn't care what you've done

So come home

Discipline and Focus

1 Corinthians 9:24-27 states, "Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one gets the prize? Run in such a way as to get the prize. Everyone who competes in the games goes into strict training. They do it to get a crown that will not last, but we do it to get a crown that will last forever. Therefore I do not run like someone running aimlessly; I do not fight like a boxer beating the air. No, I strike a blow to my body and make it my slave so that after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified for the prize." After reading this passage. it struck me that I was spending too much time aimlessly running instead of focusing on my actual goal for the marathon. My hope is that I complete it in under 4 hours, but I have not put in much time thinking over how I might accomplish this feat. After consulting my father, he reminded me to not go out too fast and to build up my core strength, along with my shoulder strength. His advice gave me areas to put extra effort into so that I am as prepared as I possibly can be on race day. This means I will need to discipline myself so that I can maintain an exercise routine that includes both running and strength training.

We must not go through life aimlessly either. Our purpose on this earth is to do our part in promoting the Kingdom of God. We are not here to build up wealth and friends, as useful as we might find them at the moment. Much like in my training, we need to reorient our focus on the end goal, which is eternal life. Once we remind ourselves that heaven is our goal, we will look at how we go about our lives in a new fashion. Instead of merely speaking to people in passing, we should do our best to get to know them and connect with them because one never knows who is searching for a friend in life. We can all use encouragement, and there is no better encouragement than the Gospel of our Lord, Jesus Christ. If we are able to encourage others with this Good News and build a strong relationship with God through loving Jesus, then we have fulfilled our earthly purpose and maintained our spot in heaven.

Teetering on the Verge of Despair

Proverbs 16:18 ~ "Pride goes before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall." This particular verse came up at a Bible study I was at last night. The group was finishing up 1 Samuel and discussing King Saul and how his pride got in the way of trusting God. We also discussed how pride is actually the center of all sin and even depression. I found this to be an interesting perspective because one tends to think that depression stems from a lack of confidence, but it can actually come from thinking to highly of oneself. Discussion also swirled around whether we can truly be happy for another's success, which happened to be an idea I had been considering on my drive down to Bible study.
As a runner, you always strive to achieve certain goals and when you feel them slipping out of reach while other runners achieve them, you find yourself partly wishing that it was you in the midst of the excitement and but still finding the ability to be happy for their accomplishments. The root of that temporary hope for the focus to be shifted onto oneself is pride, whether we want to admit to it or not. Nobody ever wants to admit to being prideful, but it happens to everybody because it is in our sin nature. Romans 7:19 says, "For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do--this I keep on doing." Understandably, we want to do that which is good, but we must overcome our sin nature, which means that we must defeat Satan so that he does not control our minds and actions.
I had a very intense struggle on my run this morning with Satan, and I hate to admit that he got the better of me. Instead of trusting God to take care of me, I had taken a step back to my old ways and was relying on my own abilities to get me through to the end. This led to me feeling utterly defeated over the course of the 10 miles on a frigid run with my professor. To make matters worse, my health was still on the mend from my fever on Thursday and I was super congested, making breathing the cold air extremely difficult. Couple that with legs that did not feel like they had any sense of the word "turnover" and I was left teetering on the verge of despair and questioning whether running a marathon on May 15th was even going to be possible. I trudged along the entire way and finished in 1 hour and 30 minutes; the most miserable 90 minutes I have had in a very long time.
After my run, I had many things going through my head. I talked out these feelings with my brother, roommate, and training partners and they all came to the same conclusion. I should focus on the fact that I was able to finish a 10 mile run after not being healthy all week and not running in 6 days. As much as I really wanted to wallow in my own self pity, I knew that they were right. And I was able to think back to short periods in the run where I felt okay, and that was when I had lyrics from the Kutless song "It is Well" going through my head.
I do believe that today was a necessary learning experience. It was positive in the sense that I know I can still run even while I am recovery from a bad cold. That also reminds me that I need to fully recover my health and that it is important to be able to breathe to make running easier. I also need to not focus on past accomplishments and how easy running used to and not let my pride lead me down the road of depression. I am very thankful that I was able to avoid tumbling down into that dark abyss, and I would like to keep it that way. I just have to take it one day at a time and leave the negative from today behind so that I do not ruin my mindset for the rest of the week and future training sessions. I plan on working on building a stronger relationship with God and desperately trying to remind myself that He is the one that I need to turn to, and it is human to forget such a concept.
I am going to leave you with a passage that I opened to in the book "Pure Gold". The words are originally from an old hymnal, but they were very fitting and comforting.

Be still, my soul: the Lord is on thy side.
Bear patiently the cross of grief or pain.
Leave to thy God to order and provide;
In every change, He faithful will remain.
Be still, my soul: thy best, thy heavenly Friend
Through thorny ways leads to a joyful end.

Stumbling Blocks or Building Blocks?

Each person in life combats their own personal demons everyday. It makes it hard sometimes to get through the day because you feel like nobody can relate to what you are going through. I was reminded of this at a youth event at a church last night.  The event was called "I'm screwed up; you're screwed up." It was nice to be confronted with the realization that we all have troubles in this world and that we are not alone. Numerous people deal with similar situations and can be a wealth of knowledge if you ever come across those individuals, and of course Jesus can relate to any and every kind of suffering here on Earth because He has experienced it.
When it comes to life and running, I must admit that my biggest obstacle is my own mind. For those who know me well, this doesn't come as any big surprise. For the rest who know me in passing, this may not be as apparent. In all honesty, each and everyday I personally struggle with some form of confidence issue, anxiety, or depression depending on the season and what the day brings forth. Like many, I am slightly ashamed to admit to these struggles, but I have slowly come to accept them as part of who I am and my hope is to be able to help others around me who have similar issues. But it is because of these mental struggles that I may appear anxious, distracted, quiet, or my words come out as a mumble. In recent months, I have been trying to force myself out of my comfort zone in order to defeat my inner demons. If I sense the stirrings of a round of depression, I force myself to socialize with people because I know that isolation is the worst idea in such a situation. I am also rebuilding my confidence in the area of running by signing up for the Delaware Marathon and am currently 8 weeks away from race day. My hope is to put the doubt out of my mind that I can finish the marathon since I dropped out at mile 22 of the Harrisburg Marathon in November 2007.
A verse from the youth event got me thinking that I can use my own struggles in running to help others. 2 Corinthians 1:3-4 says, "Praise be to God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God." Pondering this verse, I realized that my own doubts when it comes to the marathon and my experience of completing and marathon and dropping out of one could be used to help others who are struggling with doubt. I understand the many aspects of training and how one should feel leading up to race day, so I can utilize this knowledge God has blessed me with to help calm to anxiety of fellow runners. I have had to overcome my own anxiety, doubt, and confidence issues in the realm of running and God has comforted me whenever I have stumbled. I believe that He wants me to be an ear for other runners who also voice doubts so that I can try and provide comfort after understanding where they are at in their own training and mentality.
Instead of viewing my mental battles as stumbling blocks, I believe I should view them as building blocks for relationships with other runners.  Without these hardships, I would not be the person or runner that I am today and it is foolish to try and outrun who I am because the Father rendered me into a unique being and He makes no mistakes. Proverbs 27:17 states, "As iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another." I take this to mean that those of similar character, striving towards similar goals, and struggling with similar issues can help build each other up and strengthen the other's overall outlook and confidence due to shared understanding.  This is why it is so important to be honest about who we are inside because you never know if the person next to you is dealing with a similar situation and can provide comfort and encouragement to get you through the day. In the same fashion, always be willing to listen to others and provide counsel because you never know who needs their faith bolstered.