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For most of my life I have been an endurance athlete. Inspired by my older brother, I started running when I was thirteen. I ran cross-country in high school and continued distance running through university. After university, I added cycling as a second bad habit. Where I was living in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia offered some of the best road biking terrain in the world and I ate it up. In my 30’ and early 40’s I started running half and whole marathons. Quite frankly, I love to run. Unfortunately, these days now in my late 50’s I can’t do much of it without my joints taking a beating. But regardless and no matter how much it hurts, when it’s Fall, I will take a few runs. I have to and I can’t quite explain why, but I’ll try.
Endurance athletes – not just runners but also cyclists, rowers, lake swimmers, skaters, walkers – all share somethings in common. Speaking as a runner, there is something soothing about the repetitive sound of your feet hitting the pavement. It is a rhythm much like a heartbeat. Listening to that sound for a half hour to an hour or more can make the world go away. Anytime you can make the world go away is renewing. Depending on how long your out there, time spent running can help you sort out your doodoo and figure some stuff out. It gives you time to think. When I run, I pray. I talk to God. It’s spiritual for me. If it’s a dirt road in the country that I’m on, I can hear the trees and fields sing their praise. There are also the health benefits of putting your body through repetitive motions making the cardio vascular system work. The body, particularly the heart, begins to work more efficiently. Your heart actually gets bigger. This makes you way healthier. When your body exerts itself for extended periods of time the brain starts to manufacture chemicals called endorphins that counteract the stress chemicals that the body produces as well as make you feel well. There have been several studies done to show daily participation in an endurance activity is as effective or more effective than taking anti-depressants for mood disorders. I could go on about the benefits of endurance sports, but I’ll sum it by saying endurance exercise (even if it’s just walking for a half hour or more) makes you healthier physically, emotionally, mentally, spiritually.
I whole-heartedly believe that a core component to being human is learning how to endure. Adding a regimen of endurance exercise to your life is beneficial in that endurance activities teach us how to endure. It’s not instant gratification. If we live our lives as we do today, centered on instant gratification and feel-good solutions we just feed the addictive, narcissistic tendencies that plague us humans in our brokenness.
Learning endurance is how we functionally and healthily deal with the suffering that comes with life. Any true runner will tell you that running isn’t about the thrill you get for finishing that race, or running that fast mile, or being able to run faster every time you run. It’s about the sound of your feet hitting the pavement one foot in front of the other, listening to how your body feels, listening to your thoughts, listening to the Creation, listening to God. If you try to run for the thrill of faster, faster, faster, you will get injured and you won’t know the joy of it and will soon quit.
Such is life, if you’re living just to feel good and calling that happy, you’re not really living. Life is hard. Suffering is a bitter reality for us. Trying to escape it, deny it, medicate it so as to not go through it, particularly when it’s our relationships that are suffering, will cause more pain than doing the hard work of patiently enduring which comes with some pain as well. We live in a broken world full of broken people. It’s a world of relationship. No one is an island unto themselves. If we simply seek our own happiness and not work together at it with those closest to us, we will wreak havoc and cause those closest to us to suffer for us and even because of us. It takes the skills of endurance to suffer for and with one another to find healing in the midst of brokenness. It is going through the same things day after day listening – listening to ourselves, to each other, to the Creation, to God. That’s where we find faith, hope, and love…indeed a deeper sense of happiness than the me-oriented happiness that is vogue today. You know, ask any alcoholic in recovery, they will tell you that if you’re the only one at the party who’s happy while everyone else is hurting or scratching their heads in disbelief, well, you just might be the reason no one else is happy and having a good time.
Jesus tells us here that it is by our endurance that we will gain our souls. He is clearly speaking about our enduring through trials of faith that come upon us because of our association with him. Loyalty to Jesus exhibited in trying to live a life that is according to the standards of what is right in God’s eyes will bring upon us situations in which we will have to endure. Paul wrote to the Thessalonians, “But y’all, brothers and sisters, do not grow weary of doing what is right” (2 Thes. 3:13) and by right we mean right in the eyes of God not in the eyes of people. This is not a simple task. It is not easy to do what is right in the eyes of God. Because of this world’s enmity to Jesus even what seems right in this world will too often be at odds with the love of God. We will struggle with ourselves, with those closest to us, with our brothers and sisters in Christ, and of course, with the society, culture, and community in which we live. Therefore, we will find ourselves always having to patiently endure the at-odds-ness that arises because we live according to Jesus’s demands on our lives.
How do we patiently endure in this world? Due to the craziness that surrounds us – wars, inflation, pandemics, environmental crises, politicians carrying on like professional wrestlers, celebrity worship, social media’s and the media’s lack of truth, gun violence, people raging, epidemic drug abuse, the loss of a moral compass, everybody just doing what makes themselves happy, rampant selfishness, hopelessness – a lot of people are asking is this the end. Frankly, we are definitely at the end of Christianity’s influence in Western culture. Thusly, there are many sacred, core elements of our culture that are ending which does make us feel like the world is ending – who defines Truth, what is right, what is wrong, what is family, what is marriage, are their powers higher than myself which demand my allegiance; these are all things up for grabs right now and we will find ourselves at-odds, if we point to Jesus and the way of self-denying, sacrificial, unconditional love as the Way, the Truth, and the Life. How do we endure in this deconstructed nearly Godless world we live in?
Well, looking at the lessons I’ve learned from endurance running, I’ve got a few ideas. First, just as the rhythm and sound of one foot hitting the pavement after another, we need to keep going on with life one step at a time building the repetition of spiritual ritual into our lives by regularly throughout the day creating space and time to be with God and with friends of faith. Taking time to stop and pray. Have a special place in the house or the yard or the neighbourhood which is where you go with the attitude of “God I am open to you here. This is our space and time.” Build a rhythm of going to that place as often as you can. Also, have friends who will send you a reminder several times a day that they are praying for you and likewise. Develop a rhythm of prayer as you go about life one step at a time one day at a time.
Second, Just being out there on a long run or long walk gives you plenty of time to sort through you doodoo and ponder your life, take time throughout the day to pray and ponder life, your life. Lift up your soul, bear your soul to God knowing that he is listening to you and cry, shout, scream. Life is hard. We need to know that the God who revealed himself to us as Jesus loves us and is faithful to us, His beloved ones. Take your broken, hurting self to God who is Jesus and you will soon discover you are not alone and this Presence with you, the Holy Spirit, loves you more than you can grasp.
Last, listen. Listen to yourself. What’s your internal 8-track cassette continually playing in your mind? What are you always feeling? How’s your health? Listen to the people around. What’s up with them? Are they trying to tell you something and you’re just not hearing it? Non-verbal’s can tell you a lot. Listen to the Creation. Listen to the birds, the wind in the trees, the sound of the colours. Listen to the wisdom and beauty of an old rock or a tree. Listen for God and listen to God. God does speak to us. That’s another sermon in itself. Don’t think God is far of and doesn’t care. God is beside you and in you and God does care and will speak. Read your Bible and read it expecting God to speak to you and the stuff you’ve been bearing your soul to him about.
Find a daily prayer rhythm as you take life one step at a time. Bear your soul to God. Listen. And do it with friends. That’s enduring in this difficult life and as Jesus said, “By your endurance you will gain your soul”. That’s the true life he has to offer. Amen.
