Faith and a 5K

For the past few months I have had an unexplainable want to do a 5K race even though this is something that I have never done before. However, I realized that I would not follow through with this if I had to start on my own so I got a couple of other people on board with doing a 5K and training so, for the past 3 days I have started the self training for a 5K and with that has come some realizations of how doing a 5K is much like our Christian walk with Christ.

First of all, to train for a 5K and eventually participate in a 5K or any race, you need to have the right equipment. In the case of a race it’s having the right shoes and clothing. If you don’t have this right then you will find yourself facing the consequences and not doing the best that you could possibly do if you had the right equipment. When it comes to faith, we also need the right equipment; we need the Scripture and a community of believers around us, which goes into point 2.

When training, it’s more encouraging to do so with others so that you have the accountability of others to keep on going and not give up. The same goes with our faith, we need to be connected with a community of people that also believe and can hold us accountable to keep our faith and grow in our walk with Christ. Without the community then we loose motivation and find ourselves at a point where sometimes we just want to give up but when others are involved then we have someone to lean on, learn from, and keep going and not give up.

When training, there comes a point where you need to push yourself to keep going and not give up even when you find yourself hurting and wanting to give up. In the Christian walk, there are times where we feel beat up and to a point where we don’t see how we can continue moving forward. We find ourselves hurting and not sure how much more we can handle but God promises to not give us more than we can handle and we need to continue to push ourselves and see the finish line. We need to finish the race strong and not give up even when things get hard.

We need to set goals when training and getting ready for a race, we need to see what’s ahead of us and strive to get better as time goes on. Just as we need to continue growing in our Spiritual walks with Christ as time goes on. We can’t just stop after reading scripture once, going to church once, having one devotion, praying once, etc but we need to set goals and grow stronger and gain experience.

Also when training for a race, there comes a time where you need to rest to give your muscles a break and a chance to recuperate from the run or exercise. You need to rest so that you can come back stronger and ready for the next run. When it comes to our spiritual walk with God, there comes a time where we just need to rest and be still. We need to be refreshed and come back stronger than we were when we first began and ready for the next assignment, job, day, etc. You can’t go every day training or being busy, there comes a time where we are called to just rest and be still so that we don’t find ourselves burned out and at a point where we can’t go any further.

With that all being said, I wonder, how in tact is our spiritual health? Are we focused on our physical health and training for a race and forgetting about the ultimate race, which is the race, God has called us to? How can we be better prepared for the ultimate race and finish that race strong? What stage of training are you at right now and what is God wanting you to do to be better-equipped and ready to finish the race strong and not get burned out and at a point of wanting to give up?

It may seem easy to give up and like that is the easy thing to do but I want to say, keep pushing forward and don’t allow the pain or the spiritual battle to stop you from winning the race and ending in victory! There is hope for everyone but the journey of getting to the end of the race isn’t going to be easy but it’s then that you just need to rely on God and be kept accountable for what you have set out to accomplish and what God has called you to do!