I Have A Habit Of Running

This year, I’ve been learning a lot about myself. About my personality, how I think and feel, and why I do what I do. I’ve learned a lot about my specific struggles and how they affect my life. One of those specific things I struggle with is laziness. If I’m being honest, it’s something I struggle with on a daily basis.

Now my title may seem to contradict what I just said. If I’m lazy how have I made a habit of running? Well, I’m not talking about running physically. I actually loathe running because it’s hard and like I said I’m lazy and don’t want to work hard. But I’ve been working on that too 😉 I’d love to make actual running a habit of mine.

No, I’m talking about running in the emotional sense of the word. Maybe avoiding would be another word to use. Laziness for me leads to avoiding and running. Running from myself, running from problems, conflict, uncomfortable situations, running from risk, hard things, and sometimes even running from God. Because what I desire is peace. Peace in my heart and soul. And for some reason, my brain thinks that avoiding and running will bring that peace. Which I’ve learned time and time again that it doesn’t. And yet sometimes I fall back into that habit and I still avoid and I still run.

If any of you are like me and struggle with laziness, you get it. And lately, I’ve found myself being frustrated by the fact that I struggle with it so often. I’ve realized my laziness has probably caused a stunt in my growth. So instead of being 10 feet tall (emotionally and spiritually speaking), I find myself to be quite short, maybe a measly 5 feet 2 inches (literally that’s my height, I’m short). But you get what I’m saying right? I find myself not being where I thought or hoped I’d be in terms of my growth spiritually and emotionally. I’ve fallen short. And I find that to be disheartening and disappointing.

But luckily, I have this refueling motivation to keep pushing forward even in reality of that disappointment. A reminder of who God is, who I am, and how He uses me. Because we all fall short sometimes. Romans 3:23 says “For everyone has sinned; we all fall short of God’s glorious standard.” The laziness in me sees that verse sometimes and thinks, well if we all fall short, what’s the point in trying?

I remember as a kid learning to ride a bike. My dad took me out on this tennis court, he took my training wheels off, and he’d push me off. He’d run beside me and tell me to peddle as hard as I could. And I remember falling, over and over again. With all my scrapes and bruises, my five-year-old-self kept wanting to quit, to leave my bike on the ground and run away because it was too hard. But it was that process of getting up and trying again, the hope of being able to peddle fast enough to ride that bike that kept me going. And that process made the success all the more glorious.

I think that’s where we find a lot of God’s goodness and grace. In our effort, in our trying again, our knowing we might fail but trusting that God will work in that. And sometimes trying again results in success, but other times it results in another fall. And that’s OK. It’s taken me a long time to be OK with that fact. Because I hate failure. I hate feeling like I wasted time trying so hard only to fail again. I think we all do. And laziness causes us to believe it’s not worth the effort anymore. And when we believe that and avoid the work that needs to be done, we miss out. We miss out on the growth that can happen when we try.

Because even though failure is a reality. God is faithful to use our trying, our pursuit, our work. Even if the end result isn’t what we wanted. He uses us in our shortcomings, successes, failures, and all. And that my friends, is where I’ve seen God’s beauty, creativity, and power at work in my life. Because even though I fall short of His glory, I glorify Him in the midst of my attempts, my striving, pursuing, my running (in a new direction).

I love what Galatians 6:9 says “And let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up.” When we persevere, when we don’t give up God blesses us. The process of not giving up shapes us. We often learn new things, and we always grow in the thick of the challenges we face.

And so, I press into God in my weakness and He gives me the strength to keep getting up and trying. Instead of running away like my normal lazy-self would do, I run to Him. A much better habit than running away. I encourage you friends, to continue in your failing and succeeding, in the midst of your trying, to keep running to Jesus. Watch Him work as you do whatever you are doing. Because He will do awesome things in and through you no matter the outcome. Don’t let laziness cause you to miss out on what God has for you. I’ve done it many times, and I’ve learned, the process of the trying will always be more rewarding than avoiding or running from the problems. God is good and He is faithful to bless our efforts.