Spiritual Exercise

2/2/2022

Written by: Christian Gregory

The year was 2016. I was six months postpartum. I don’t know if it was the Holy Spirit or hormones but when my Pastor gave a sermon about doing hard things and asked us to run a mini-marathon for the sake of clean water for villages in Africa, I was the first to say yes.

It’s important to know that I had never ran a single mile without stopping. In my high school weightlifting class, we would start each day with running four laps around indoor track, and our coach had everyone stay behind me for lap one as a warm up because I am so slow.

Now that you have my running resume, this next part will come as no surprise. I not only said yes to running 13.1 miles but my hand shot up when they asked for a team leader. I may have no experience with running but I had also never volunteered for anything at church before, so clearly I was very qualified.

I was given a brief overview then of what would be expected of the team leader…arrange weekly team runs, motivate members, get us all past the finish line 18 weeks later. But there’s always more, isn’t there?

A week later I was in a room with a dozen other team leaders from the Greater Indianapolis area and honestly there was a lot of info, but I blacked out after they said I’d need to pray at each group run. I am not a public speaker, more specifically I am not a public pray-er. Could I have asked another runner to lead the prayer? A normal person would have. But I’m no monster, and I wasn’t going to put anyone else through that!

I’ll never forget my first non-stop mile or my first prayer for our team. In both cases I experienced shortness of breath, difficulty standing, lightheaded-ness, trouble speaking, and I cried. I know what you’re thinking..that I had two strokes. But I did not. I was just out of shape and had social anxiety!

I came back the next week and I ran further and I prayed for our team, and it was all still terrible. But each week I just kept showing up and did what I said I was going to do, and each time it got easier. After 18 weeks of training, I ran a mini-marathon without stopping and I prayed for our team in a sea of runners in downtown Indianapolis, all without the stroke-like symptoms.

I hoped I’d come out of this with Carrie Underwood legs and a new found love for exercise. I got neither. But I learned to run, and I learned to pray. I joked about the Holy Spirit having something to do with my sudden gusto for running and volunteering that morning, but the lesson that I learned about exercise during that season forever changed the way I look at hard things. I don’t think that was an accident. Physical exercise and spiritual exercise have the same conditions. Show up, do the hard thing, repeat and you will improve.

I used to avoid hosting people in my home for many reasons: my house is too messy, I’m not a good enough cook, my floor plan doesn’t flow well enough for large groups, etc. To make a long story short, there will be about 15 people at my house tonight. People will laugh and feel loved and welcomed and nothing else really matters. It took time for me to believe that, but it’s true.

Another insecurity of mine has always been reading aloud in front of people. Add in the sometimes strange grammar of the Bible, and by the end of it none of us are going to know what I just read. So I have used the safe space of my small group to practice reading the Word out loud. It might come off like I’m a brown noser, but I’m just trying to work that muscle every opportunity I get.

Hebrews 13:21 says, “..equip you with everything good to do His will, working in us what is pleasing in His sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be the glory forever and ever. Amen.”

I am just trying to make myself available for God’s use, and He does the rest and uses it for His glory. Most of the things that I agree to do for the Church, I am grossly under-qualified for, but I trust God will work it out. That was a muscle that I had to exercise too. I’m not suggesting you say yes to everything, but there’s probably something you’ve felt the nudge to give a go at. And I just want to be the one to remind you that you can do hard things, friend.