God just hit me with a thought this morning 🙂

A friend of mine is training for a Half Ironman.  For those of you who aren’t familiar, these are like death camps!  Kidding.  But seriously.  She’s swimming 1.2 miles, running a half marathon (13.1 miles), and biking 56 miles (yes, fifty-six).  Um.  WHAT!!  How amazing is that but how…… challenging!  This girl has some serious determination though, so I’ve no doubt she’ll complete it with flying colors.

Ironmen and marathoners are undoubtedly in FANTASTIC shape.  By the time they cross the finish line, they’re flexing muscles they may not have seen in 10 or 20 years!  The finish line is an impressive sight of hardened bodies being pushed to their limits.

Today, as I was reading her Ironman email, I realized that endurance athletes don’t get in excellent shape in one day.  This takes many, many days of training – months and years, depending on the event they’re training for.  These athletes’ ripped physiques and great health come from many hours pounding the pavement, cycling, or doing untold numbers of strokes in the water.

If they don’t put in the hours leading up to their events, they’d never be able to perform well that day.  They’d die out early on, an incomplete event under their belts and more exhausted than they’d be had they adequately prepared themselves.

Physically, mentally and spiritually speaking, our biggest gains come not from marathon running but from training to run marathons.  If we neglect this all-important aspect of endurance competitions, we will lose on race day.

Maybe this is why God seems to have us on a constant treadmill, testing our faith, allowing trials and challenges, and stretching us beyond our capacity.  He wants us – when race day arrives – to be tested and approved!  He doesn’t want us to fail.  That’s why when the miles seem never-ending, injuries crop up, and the heat seems unbearable, we should call to mind that we’re in TRAINING for the Race.  If we can’t endure mere practices and workout days, how will we ever stand on the day when it really counts, when our competitors are breathing down our necks, and when the results last forever?  On that day, will we be able to stand the immense pressure of racing?

I’m reminded of God’s response to Jeremiah (12:5) when he argued why He allows the wicked to prosper.  God answered:

If you have run with footmen and they have tired you out,
Then how can you compete with horses?
If you fall down in a land of peace,
How will you do in the thicket of the Jordan?

I’ve never understood God’s reply.  He seemed to skirt around Jeremiah’s question and callously answer a common human complaint: Bad people doing well and good people suffering.  But maybe what the Lord was telling this old prophet was that his questions and frustrations were preparing him for the intensity of battles to come when he’d face far worse ‘injustices’.  This was his training ground.

The truth is, races offer no redos.  Judges don’t care that you have blisters from new shoes, or that you didn’t train to run hills but encountered them on the racing course, or that you didn’t sleep well the few nights before.  Your performance will go down in history, so may it be a good one.  May your training be sufficient enough to make your odds of winning far outweigh any curveballs you face at the race.  Even if you’re sleep-deprived or the weather is uncharacteristically hot.

We get in shape not from marathons but from training for marathons.  This is a crucial difference.  I’ll leave you with a powerful quote from Sir Winston Churchill:

“To every man, there comes in his lifetime, that special moment when he is figuratively tapped on the shoulder and offered a chance to do a very special thing, unique to him and fitted to his talents; What a tragedy if that moment should find him unprepared or unqualified for the work which would be his finest hour.”

May we be ready for ours when our day comes!