How to Eat Healthy… It’s Easy!

Let’s be Real… It’s Not!

“I wish I could eat healthy.” 

Have you ever said that?  You know the drill.  Start a diet excited.  Get through the first week and crave something bad. Resistance only lasts so long before you have no desire to eat healthy anymore.  You miss the doughnuts, pizza, ice-cream, candy, pop…  You know they are bad for you and yet, you keep eating them.

I learned that the flesh is very resistant to change, especially in breaking old habits.  So I created seven tips for you in how you can begin to eat healthy, that have been helpful for me. 

I’m not going to lie, it has taken me seven months to get over this “diet mentality”, but it has been so rewarding and I am losing inches as well as weight, while still gaining muscle and training for a marathon.  It’s not always easy, but it is worth it.

Seven Tips to Get out of the Dieting Mentality

  • DON’T DIET!

If you haven’t figured it out already, diets do not work.  A lot of people who are successful on diets have to continue the diet or else they gain all the weight back that they worked so hard to lose.  Diets, once started, enslave you.

  • DON’T ELIMINATE FOODS

Eliminating that late night snack that you look forward to every day is also going to enslave you.  You will be waiting for that “one day” that you can have that elimination fulfilled.  And the more you want it, the harder it is to resist.  Resisting equals stress.  Stress puts your body in fat storage mode.

  • DRINK PLENTY OF WATER

Water cleanses and restores your body.  It keeps you healthy and encourages your body to work properly.  In addition, your brain does not know the difference between hunger and thirst signals, so if you stay hydrated you will know the hunger pains when they come.

  • BECOME INTUITIVE

This is one of the greatest choices I have ever made, besides salvation of course.  Being intuitive is listening to your body and giving it what it needs.  As long as you do not have any medical conditions, you can listen to its cravings and fulfill them.  Over time you can learn to supplement the not so healthy things, such as sugar with carbs, and chocolate with magnesium rich foods, but for now eat what you want and don’t stress about it.

  • WRITE DOWN YOUR WHY

This may be one of the most important tips on this list.  If you don’t know why you want to eat healthy, you WILL NOT have any motivation to do so.  Your why’s fuel you.

  • START SMALL

Ever started a New Year’s Resolution list and then within months, weeks, or even days gave up on it?  I believe this is because we take on too much broadness with not enough specificity and reasonality (if that is even a word).   Pick ONE thing.  Work on that till it’s a habit.  Then add another.  Each goal accomplished is fuel added to your enthusiasm to move forward.

  • LIVE YOUR LIFE

Don’t stress about it.  Live out who you are in Christ and realize that He is all that matters.  What you really crave is Him and you will never be fulfilled until you are full of Him.  Fulfilled equals filled full with the Love of Christ.  Nothing else in life matters.  When we die it will not matter if we ate healthy or exercised every day.  Live your life and stop worrying.

So in addition to this list I created a picture for you to print out and hang on your fridge as reminders of Who you are in Christ and what you need to keep in mind while on this journey of eating healthier. 

You may be wondering why these kinds of reminders are needed.  Well, put simply, we live out our identity.  Somewhere in your past you allowed yourself to be identified in a negative way that is affecting the decisions you make today.   It is complicating to understand, so for now, I pray you will continue seeking after Christ,

Happy Running Ya’ll!

Enjoying the Build Up, Not Just the End

Living out Your Dreams

For about a year now I have been following Sara Hall and have been so totally inspired by her determination to enjoy the process before each one of her races.  She talks quite often about how she counts it a gift and a blessing to train.  Some runners have a difficult time living in the moment because they are too focused on that end goal, that race at the finish.  I feel Sara has nailed that down in her running career and it’s shining forth through her perseverance to keep pushing forward with a smile.

A good thing to think about is that that end goal could possibly only last an hour or a day.  You’ll get to the end and wonder where time has gone.  Did you make memories during the build up or did you fly through it and not remember a thing?

I don’t know about you, but on my end goal, September 25th, my first ever marathon race day, I want to be able to look back and remember all the times I stopped to enjoy life.  I will be driving two hours at 4 o’clock in the morning to warm up for a race I plan on finishing around noon.  Then it will be over.  That is not even a day of excitement.  What about the months of build up, am I enjoying each hour that goes by? What about the tasks at hand, am I being diligent at completing them with just as much enthusiasm as I will have on race day?

A couple weeks ago I heard a guy say that one of the reasons he was not on social media was because of the “fakeness” that goes on there.  He wasn’t saying he would never be on there, but in so many words he was sharing that the hypocrisy that goes on is something he wants to avoid.  For me, this really rang true because that is one of the reasons why I have avoided Instagram and Twitter, and why I have gone back and forth on Facebook and YouTube… I don’t want to be fake.  I want to be real.  I want people to see the tears and sweat poured into the journey throughout the build-up.  I want people to relate easily to what I share and I want them to know that they are not the only ones who struggle.  But no one else seems to do that.

Not many people share the journey as they are going through it.  They figure if they want to make an impact in someone else’s life that they need to be a leader – a leader who knows what to do and when to do it – someone who can help others on their journey.  I don’t know about you, but I am encouraged when people share their build-up.  It lets me know that real people can do big things.  We all start at square one, so why not share it?! 

Let’s live out our dreams, instead of living for them.  Let’s enjoy the build-up just as much as the end goal.  And in the mean time, let’s share that journey with others so that they know,

Real people can do big things!

I have enjoyed sharing this journey of starting Be Still and Run with you.  I am grateful for the many of you who joined me early on and am super excited to see where God takes us in the next year or so.  My new goal is to start being real – to get back on social and share what goes on behind the scenes.  I know it won’t be easy and it will take awhile to get back on track, I want to start letting people know that we all have a journey.  Stop sharing just the quick selfie you took at the ice-cream shop and share the difficulty you had in getting there.  Stop sharing the race photos without sharing the tears and struggles of the build-up.  (Don’t forget though to take into consideration other people’s privacy!)

Happy Running Ya’ll!  I love each and every one of you and pray you would grow stronger in your faith this week! 

We can do nothing without Christ, but we can do all things through Him!

See John 15:5 and Philippians 4:13

New Midweek Motivation!

Last week I published our first Midweek Motivation podcast, which you can check out here.  I am very excited about these as I plan on sitting down for about 10 minutes or so and just sharing my heart with you, in hopes that you will find some motivation and encouragement for the rest of your week. It will be totally real life, well almost :D.

Marathon Training

What am I getting myself in to????

Never did I imagine I would be training for a marathon.  EVER!  My first goal was to run down to our stop sign (.75 miles) and back.  I didn’t want to do any more.  Well… once I accomplished that, all I wanted to do was a 5k (3.1 miles).  Then I wondered what it would be like to run down the end of the next road (5.5 miles total).  Umm… do you see where this is going?  I remember specifically saying, “I will never run a marathon.  That’s not for me.  Those people are crazy.”  And yet, here I am!  I’ve been wondering, What happened to change my mind?

At the time of writing this I will be running a ten mile long run this weekend.  Which isn’t bad, I’ve ran that before, but with 13 miles already for this week, I wonder if my body will take it.  I can feel the muscles soreness that my body is having to deal with.  After my speed workout on Wednesday they feel much better, but I can’t help but wonder if I’m going to make it.  I have to be honest, I am tired.  And that in itself scares me because I’m not even half way through training yet.

 If it wasn’t for the calling from God to run this marathon, I probably never would have signed up.  Actually I may have never even started running.  It’s just not me. 

Has there ever been a time in your life when you knew your life was about to change but you couldn’t quite make out what it was going to be?  I get that feeling about this marathon.  I don’t know if it’s good or if it’s bad, but I feel total peace about where I am going.  I still feel like I am directly in the center of God’s will.  To be honest I never would have dreamed a marathon was a “good work” that God had chosen for me to accomplish in my life time.  What glorification could God possibly get out of that?

As I sat grimacing with pain on the foam roller the other night, I was trying to figure out what exactly I wanted to say in this blog post.  I knew I wanted to talk about marathon training, but I didn’t know what about it.  Then it hit me.  Marathon training takes determination and effort over a long period of time.  I am about nine weeks into my training plan, with 94 days left. It is a daily grinding away.  It takes labor, planning, sleep, rest, nutrition, tears, pain, and work in order to get through this.  And I am tired.  But I lace up for every workout because I know if I’m going to run this marathon, I have to build up.

I’m told it will be worth it.

Isn’t that what the Bible teaches about heaven?  It will be worth it.  Everything we did on earth to glorify our Lord and Savior will be restored to us and we will get to live with Him forever!  Oh what a day that will be!  I look forward to that first look of Jesus face-to-face.  I plan on running up into his arms and crying tears of joy to be finally home!  What do you look forward to most about heaven?  Let me know in the comments below!

Until next time,

Happy Running Ya’ll!

Wear Your Own Shoes

(How to) Be the Person God Created You to Be -Part 3

For the longest of times I was locked in the box of living up to other peoples’ standards and opinions of me.  I was controlled by the slightest remarks and comments stated by others.  I had to dress a certain way, eat a certain way, talk a certain way, like certain activities, etc.  I didn’t even know what it was like to be myself.  Actually I didn’t even know who the real Allison was.  What did she like and dislike?  What did she enjoy?  What were her convictions and standards?  Eventually God led me to step out of the box and live the life He created me to live.  I stopped wearing other peoples’ shoes and decided to try on my own.

You have probably heard the phrase “walk a mile in someone’s shoes” right?  Well this is what I want to talk about today.  I’ve shared a little over the last few weeks about becoming the person you were meant to be (Here is Part One and Part Two if you missed them.), so I wanted to create a continuation of that topic since it is presently very dear to my heart. 

First off let’s start with physical shoes, you know the ones you wear on your feet.  Do you know if the drop is 4mm or 10mm?  Is it a minimalist shoe?  How about a cushioned or stability shoe?  Are they comfortable?  Flexible?  Made for the type of workouts you do? 

As a heads up I am not saying shoe manufacturers are not good.  They have created so many different kinds and there are pros and cons to each.  But I am saying that some people make shoe selection way too much of a headache than it needs to be.  Try the shoe on, make sure there is room for your toes to swell and move around freely, make sure your heel does not slip around, run a couple miles in them, make sure they are flexible and comfortable… that is pretty much the gist of it.  If you want to get technical, use trail shoes for trail running, road shoes for road running, and track shoes for track running. 

Some people may argue that this is not correct – there are shoes built for supinators and over-pronantors – but actually if you correct your form and add in some strength training, your body should take care of that for you. I’m not saying it will fix everyone’s problem, but it’s worth a shot to try it.  Your feet and legs should really only be used to support you anyway, not power you, but that is a whole nother topic.

So now, going off of Part One and Two of Being the Person God Created You to Be, I am going to share with you how I got out of the box and began wearing my own shoes, living the life God created for me before the world began.

“For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.”

Ephesians 2:10

Are you ready for the simple action step on how to be the person God created you to be?

  1. Make sure you have accepted Jesus as your Lord AND Savior (from your heart, not your head),
  2. Read Ephesians 1 and 2, underlining everything it says you are as a believer in Christ, and
  3. Go over your list every day, morning and evening if you can.

That’s it.  I don’t want you to try to figure out who you are, but rather reflect on who you really are.  Confusing?  That is probably because it seems too simple.  But let me assure you that it works.  In one month of doing this it began to completely change my life!  One month!  Can you commit to reading the list you make 30 times, 60 at most? If you would like accountability in doing this, hop over to our new Facebook group and let us know!  We would love to encourage you because we know how much you will benefit from it.

But until next time

Happy Running Ya’ll!

Be the Person God Created You to Be – pt.2

Taking Care of What God has Entrusted Us

Within a two year period I was humiliated a few times on how I ran.  Slow, bouncy, I looked like a dying chicken and I was about to fall over… someone even asked if I was the walker that they’d seen go by their tree stand.  *face palm*  As time went on, I knew I could improve, but I went about changing it all in the wrong way.  I decided to research how others were doing it, trying to be like them.  I became very self-conscience about the way I looked and made sure to avoid people if I could. 

My form slowly got better, but I was wasting energy because it was not efficient.  I started getting injured, which had rarely occurred before this all happened, and thus my training greatly suffered.

Taken from “Be the Person God created you to be” – pt.1

Two weeks ago I promised to continue this story, but to be honest it took some thought to figure out what actually happened.  When you are the main actor in a story sometimes life can fly by without you even realizing what is going on. (If you missed Part One click here to read it.)

Yesterday when I was enjoying a 15 mile bike ride, I asked God to teach me something.  Within minutes I passed this overgrown, old farm house.  It could have been a beautiful piece of property, but because the owners had, for one reason or another, neglected to care for the land’s basic needs, it was now beat up and rugged.  The white siding was old and discolored, the weeds were far past my knees, junk was everywhere, and the driveway was barely visible amongst the grasses. 

Have you ever passed such a place? 

When I saw that house, I instantly saw its potential and felt saddened by how it now looked.  What happened to cause such a scene?  What tragedy has the owners gone through?  What pain must they be enduring to be callused by the way things looked around them?  Maybe they have worn themselves out and are now depressed.  Perhaps a love one died and they can’t seem to get motivated in letting go of the past and moving on.  However they may also have experienced physical trauma or have a medical condition, of which I feel bad that no one is willing to help them or maybe the owner does not want help, of which makes me wonder why.

As you probably know, weeds don’t need much to grow – they don’t even seem to need water – they grow everywhere and in any condition.  In your experience, how long does it take for weeds to take over?  Not much time right?  Weeds can creep up without us knowing it and if we continue telling ourselves “tomorrow I’ll take care of it,” we will never get to it and before long they have taken over. 

Our mind is like a garden, what we plant there will grow and produce seed.  Good thoughts will produce good fruit.  Bitterness, hatred, self-condemnation, lies, etc. will produce more of the same.

As I contemplated what I had seen at the farm house, God also brought to mind that how I saw the potential of that house, so He sees that when He looks at us.  If you are a Christian, God sees Jesus in you and the great potential of who you are becoming!  He sees the bad fruit in our life and prunes it.  He sees the good fruit and wants to fertilize and take care of it so it produces more.  How great is that!  We don’t have to do it, we just have to let Him!

I pray we can all grasp this perspective.  That we might see the good in people and who they are becoming, as well as realizing who God sees us to be.

It doesn’t matter who I tried to be like when I ran, it wasn’t me.  It doesn’t matter who criticized the way I ran, it still wasn’t me, I was and still am, a working progress.  Read about Eric Liddel.  Everyone deeply criticized how he ran.  They deemed him unfit and not able to win the Olympic medal, but you know what?  He continued being himself and won the gold in the 400meter!  God had given him a gift and it didn’t matter what other people said, he was going to use his running for God.

Take care of what God has given you.  Your body, property, mind, house, etc.  He that is faithful in little will be also faithful in much.

Happy Running Ya’ll!

Runner vs. Non-Runner

Life is full of similarities. 

But it is also full of differences.

Within the first year of running, I researched a lot, and in the process came across a lot of runner quotes that made no sense to me.  Things like, “They ask me, Why do you run?  I ask them, Why don’t you?”  Or, “Running is a time when I clear my head and get away from my problems.”  These runners seemed to really enjoy the times that they felt like they were dying.  Or at least that is the way I saw it.

For some time when people asked me why I ran or if I enjoyed it, I didn’t really have an answer.  It was a love/hate relationship.  I enjoyed being able to accomplish new distances or times, but everything else seemed to be miserable. 

Why did I keep running?

To me this is a question that still pops up sometimes, especially during this 5k May Challenge (running/walking a 5k everyday in the month of May).  Sometimes when I wake up I really just don’t want to get out there and get ‘er done. 

If you are a runner yourself, you probably understand my dilemma.  If you are not a runner, don’t let this discourage you, everything in life comes with pro’s and con’s, if done right the good definitely outweighs the bad.

As I contemplated what this topic matched up with in the spiritual realm, I realized that as a Christian, non-believers see us as weird and different, just like non-runners see runners as odd or confusing.  We serve a Jewish God that we cannot see, and from the outside, onlookers may think following Christ comes with extreme amounts of turmoil and pain, just like running.  Being a Christian (or runner) is sure to come with disappointment, discouragement, setbacks, and pain, these two practices are not meant for the uncommitted, who aren’t willing to take on the turmoil just as much as the joy. 

Being a runner requires time, energy, commitment, and care, as does the Christian life.  When we accept Christ into our lives we must realize what we are taking on, it isn’t “God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life”.  Sorry to break it to you, but not much changes on the outside when you become a Christian.   It’s what we get on the inside that is truly life-giving!

We need to learn to embrace the hard times realizing that it makes us stronger, just as we rejoice in the good times.  Whether you are a Christian, non-believer, runner, or non-runner, we all struggle with the same things, we all have good and bad days, and we all have choices to make.  But the catch is that when you become a Christian, Christ lives in you.  You then have his love, joy, peace, contentment, faith, self-control, hope, and power inside of you, available at any time if you ask Him. 

I encourage you, the next time you go for a jog, ask God to show you some similarities between running and a Christians life.  The differences between runners and non-runners are pretty obvious, but sometimes the spiritual side of things can require some extra searching.

And if you haven’t watched our fun video on Runners vs. Non-runners, I encourage you to check it out below!  It was so much fun to make!

Until Next time, Happy Running Ya’ll!

Be the Person God Created you to Be

And bloom where you are planted.

Within a two year period I was humiliated on how I ran.  Slow, bouncy, I looked like a dying chicken and I was about to fall over… someone even asked if I was the walker that they’d seen go by their tree stand.  *face palm*  As time went on, I knew I could improve, but I went about changing it all in the wrong way.  I decided to research how others were doing it, trying to be like them.  I became very self-conscience about the way I looked and made sure to avoid people if I could. 

My form slowly got better, but I was wasting energy because it was not efficient.  I started getting injured, which had rarely occurred before this all happened, and thus my training greatly suffered.

To be continued…

God created each of us to live life with Him.  He enjoys working as a team.  In Genesis, Enoch and Noah have a record of walking with God. (See Genesis 5:24 and 6:9) Micah encouraged us to humbly walk with God. (See Micah 6:8)  All throughout the Bible we see God’s heart of wanting to work with us.  He doesn’t want us to do it on our own and He doesn’t want to do it on His own. 

Some would say that the Christian life is about following Jesus, of which I whole-heartedly agree.  But if we look at the bible as a whole, we see that God wants us to follow Him so closely that we are literally walking with Him, under the shadow of His wing, hand-in-hand.  In order to be in someone’s shadow, how close do you have to be?  How close do you have to be in order to hold hands?  Pretty close I’d say.

A lot of times we seem to see ourselves as Jesus’ servants, “Lord, tell me what to do and I’ll do it.”  Though we should do this because when we gave our lives to Christ, essentially we were saying that Jesus is our Lord, we so easily leave out the other element of this relationship.  Jesus is now not just our Lord and Savior, He is our brother and counselor, and God is our Father. 

When you go on a date, whether it be with friends or a special someone, do you invite them to go with you, or do you just imagine they are there?  Of course you would invite them otherwise it would be silly to go on a date at all, right?  Why would we imagine Jesus was with us each day without inviting Him into our day-to-day lives?

For some of you this may make no sense at all, that is okay, that just means this is not for you. But to others, this may spark something inside of you and that is why I created a private Facebook group for people who want to live with Jesus each and every day, instead of living life with a bunch of rules.  This is not to say you should chuck all the principles and commandments throughout the Bible, no, instead just the opposite.  I encourage you to jump into a relationship with Jesus so that when you obey Him it is out of pure love and not duty.  The burdens of your heart can be totally lifted as you give them to Christ, you can learn to be the person God created you to be, rather than trying to be someone else, and then you can live in freedom while blooming where you are planted.

Is it all just about changing your perspective?  Perhaps, but you won’t know for sure until you try it.  That’s why I am also creating a free 5-day online challenge called, Get out of the Box and Run in Freedom.  If you are interested you can find out more here.

Until Next Time, I love ya’ll and pray you have a blessed week,

Happy Running!

Relaxing

Looking back on the Past, while Leaning on Christ for the Future

As the New Year of 2020 played out, I couldn’t help but wonder if I was doing it all wrong.  Where my goals really something I wanted to do?  After praying about them for two months and never getting an answer I thought maybe God was leaving the details up to me since He had given me my main focus, my word, and my verse.  But still something seemed out of place. 

I joined a challenge for January of memorizing and meditating on John 15.  Nine days into meditating on God’s Word, after laying it aside for so many months, I had realized how much I missed it.  It used to be a burden, just another task on my list that needed to be done.  What is happening to me?  I often caught myself thinking.  I used to hate the very idea of giving my whole life to God.  It seemed, well, boring.  And what about all the things He would ask me to do, that I knew I wasn’t going to like?

After being a Christian for about fifteen years, the year of 2019, I finally yielded my life to Christ and gave Him every area of my life.  I felt so free!  But then what?  What did He want me to do?  Before, I had been trying to live my own life hoping that it was pleasing to God.  What was to change? 

God wasn’t just after my life, He was after my heart – my whole heart – nothing more, nothing less. 

Alli

As a Christian, that’s all He wants because that is where He can work.  Over the years, sure I’d given Him a little here and a little there and He did what He could, but when I finally gave Him my whole heart, access to everything about me, I literally felt like I had been saved again, and honestly for a few hours I thought I had just gotten saved for the first time because I felt so peaceful, so quiet, and so free.  Never before had I felt this way. 

But back to January of 2020.  Psalm 37:4 says that as we delight ourselves in the Lord, He will give us the desires of our heart.  This had become a new promise to me and still is to this day.  Something I rely on God to keep, to help direct my life.  My goal is to seek Him and follow the desires He places in my heart.  Since January was going by way too fast, I really began praying that He would show me what He wanted me to do, and slowly, over time, I beginning to realize all He wanted was for me to enjoy my life with Him, right where I was.

My focus in 2020 was Christ.  I wanted to seek a relationship with Him because that is what I have realized life is about.  Love is the basis of life, but without a relationship you can’t have love since there would be no one to love.

Fast forward to the present (May 2021), I am still growing in my relationship with Christ, still pounding pavement on a regular basis because that is where my heart is.  About a month ago, for the first time in my life, I feel like I am directly in the center of God’s will for my life, right where He wants me to be!

Not only has this new peaceful state affected my everyday life, it has affected my running as well.  When I relax during a run and “just run” with good form, all pain and anxiety seems to dissipate while my pace quickens with each mile.  I have not done a race or time trial in many months so I have no idea what condition my body is in.  Some days I don’t want to get out there and run in the rain, or the wind, or the humidity, but you know what happens when you relax and rest on Christ in these undesirable conditions?  You get stronger, the easy days are not only so much easier, but so much more enjoyable, and you actually begin to enjoy or look forward to these harder workouts.

This is my focus in the year of 2021, to rest on the promises of God, to relax and enjoy the ride – to relax and trust that God is in control and knows way more than I do, thus giving Him the wisdom to lovingly guide me.  I want to learn to relax in life, in my running, and in my relationships, all while leaning on Christ.

Looking back over your life, how have you seen God at work in your heart?  What stage of life are you in?  Is it time to commit your life to Christ, to surrender to Him, to give Him everything, or is it time to relax and trust in Him, leaning on the hundreds of promises He gives to us as Christians?

For now, I’ll leave you to ponder these questions, and challenge you to look back on the past, while leaning on Christ for the future.

Until next time, Happy Running Ya’ll!

Is it Really Worth it?

When the Pain Makes you Question and Doubt your Decisions

Since I first started running, never have I dealt with so many different issues till the day I agreed with God that I wanted to be a running coach.  Then, BANG!  Tight Hips, IT band problems, knee pain, plantar fasciitis, Achilles tendonitis and tendonosis, imbalance in muscles causing discomfort, weak muscles, stress, post race depression, decline in fitness, races being cancelled… not all at once, but it was as if God said, “Okay, you’ll need to learn a few things before we go forward with this.”  Had he told me ahead of time that I was going to suffer this much, I would have taken a lot longer in making this decision, possibly ending with the decision to not even become a running coach at all.  I catch myself thinking, “Is it really worth it?”

In our Christian life, a lot of times God will pull us in a certain direction and when we decide to follow Him, it causes a lot of pain and discomfort.  Even the choice of becoming a Christian in the first place is followed by difficulties and struggles.  We can often catch ourselves thinking “Is it really worth it?” whether consciously or subconsciously.

When we ask ourselves this question we come to a fork in the road.  It’s either the route of joy amongst the pain, or the path of bitterness through the discomfort. 

Jesus promises in Matthew chapter eleven that His yoke is easy and his burden is light.

“Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.  Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls.  For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”

Matthew 11:28-30

When I first started running, I ran alone.  In the following years God encouraged me to run “with” Him, and that was one of the best things I ever did!  But as of late, God wanted to step it up a notch and encouraged me to be a vessel willing to suffer for Christ’s sake; now He wants to run “through” me!  This is amazing and feels so much more effortless than running “with” Him, even though the difficulty of the runs have magnified.

This new practice has given me a new look at the phrase, “Is it worth it?” because now it is not me doing the work, the running, or the focusing, but Christ in me.

“I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave Himself for me.”

Galatians 2:20

Honestly I still can’t wrap my mind around how this works.  God’s ways are far beyond my limited understanding.  It’s like one of those questions you get from someone that you can’t explain, you just know it’s right. 

So is it worth it?  Unbeknownst to you, some people are looking at your life and wondered, “How do you know God is real?  You’re life is no different from mine, you have just as many if not more problems than I do.”  The reply, which would be given with you actions, could simply be that you walk and talk with Him every day, you have tasted and seen that the Lord is good, and He has proven Himself over and over in your life and those around you.  It doesn’t have to be a complicated answer.  People want to “see” God and He chooses to make Himself known through us.

Are you willing to be a vessel for God?  Are you willing to step out into the unknown and be full of Christ?  Your answer to the Christian life will undoubtedly become, “Yes! It is worth it!” And people will see it, because what is on the inside is seen on the outside.

Until Next Time,

Happy Running Ya’ll!  Hope you have a great week!

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