As most of you know, I have a goal of running a marathon. On January 8th, I will seek to fulfill this goal and complete the Disney marathon. Recently on one of my long runs (which is part of the training for the marathon), I reflected upon what I was doing and in some ways how it relates to Christianity. It seems to me that there are at least three ways in which the marathon and the training serve as an analogy for our faith.
First is the importance of pacing. A marathon is a long race (26.2 miles) and it is not one where you can go all out at the beginning. If you do this, you will crash and burn. In a race of this length, you need to find what is your own pace that you can maintain over a long time making sure that there is enough in the tank for the last few miles. Within the church, there are times when we get excited about something and want to go full speed ahead. Many times this only leads to frustration and an incomplete project—for we lose energy and enthusiasm. I think of Christianity and the faith as more of a journey than a sprint. Each of us needs to find our own way of practicing and living out our faith—finding our pacing. That way we will be go many miles and will be sustained over the long haul.
Second is the importance of training. Most people cannot wake up one morning and say, ‘I will run a marathon today.’ For me, it has taken me about 2 years of fairly consistent running to work up to the point of running a marathon. The training is very important as it helps you to build mileage and push yourself to new distances. The discipline of a training plan helps to achieve the goal of running the marathon. Within our faith life, it is also very helpful to have a discipline of spiritual practices that help sustain us and help us grow in faith. This discipline would have things like Bible reading, prayer, worship, meditation, and study (to name a few). These disciplines sustain us in our faith just like a discipline of running sustains one in training for something like a marathon.
Third is the history of the marathon. The legend of the marathon dates back to Ancient Greece. The story behind the marathon is that a Greek soldier, Pheidippides, ran from the Battle of Marathon to Athens to announce that they had won the battle against the Persians. Part of the legend is that he and others ran without stopping and then burst into the Assembly to proclaim this wonderful news that they had won. The first race was about sending a messenger with very important news that needed to be delivered and that it was important that they did not stop until they were able to give their message. Our faith is about the good news of Jesus Christ and all that he has come to do for the world. This is a message that is of utmost importance and one that should be shared and spread with urgency (just like the Greek soldier ran with urgency to announce the good news of winning the war). Do we have this same urgency and devotion to the task that we might run 26 miles to share the story of Jesus Christ with others?
Sometimes it surprises me how even when we do things that most would not see as religious (running); we can learn and grow in our own understanding of the faith. My training not only has helped me in working towards accomplishing a goal, but also reminds me of some very important lesson for my faith life.
Pastor Steve