Running For My Life

I’m old, or at least my body is old. It just had it’s 68th birthday a few days ago. Most people will say, “hey that’s not old”. Half the people who say this are young, trying to be nice, and are secretly thinking OMG 68!! he’s got one foot in the grave!! The other people who say “that’s not old” are people much older than me. I used to have what I thought was an infallible system that kept me perpetually in the “not old” status. It was very complicated. This system consisted of only considering people old if they were at least 20 years older than me. This complicated system served me well until recently because 20 years from now is just too far away. I honestly don’t know very many 88 year old people. My 20 year pad is shrinking. So, now you can begin to understand why I am running for my life. To quote Jerry Reed in Smokey and the Bandit “I have a long way to go and a short time to get there.”

Old Sayings

I usually love “isms” or old sayings. I could liken my situation to this one: “If I had known I was going to live this long I woulda’ took better care of myself”. I’ve used this worn out phrase myself and heard other people say it so many times I can hardly choke out a fake laugh. There is no doubt that I never took very good care of my physical body. Oh, I cared about “looks”, don’t get me wrong, but health? not so much. The Bible tells us to treat our body like a “Temple”, People usually take very good care of a Temple. However, instead of a Temple I treated my body like an old pick-up truck. I overloaded it with scrap, ran it on bald tires, let it rust, never took it in for service, and kept just enough gas in it to get home. It’s a wonder I drove it this far!

Here’s another ism or term I don’t like at all: “he got religion”. I’ve used that term and heard others use it many times. So, is that like a disease or virus you get? You know some people do treat it like a disease. They tend to stay 6 feet or more away from you if “you got religion.” During my drinking and partying days I certainly didn’t want to be around anyone that had caught that religion stuff. I might catch it, get sick, have to change my lifestyle, and take responsibility for my actions. Ooooh! It made me shiver just to think about it.

Faith Is Not A Sickness

I am a Christian. Thankfully I didn’t wait too long and miss my chance. I listened to the Word of God, and believed. I sincerely believed that Jesus, God’s son came to earth and died on the cross for me, for my sins. He died for me personally. You see, this is not a disease or even a religion at all. It is a personal relationship. After believing and accepting Jesus as my Lord and Savior, I also received the Holy Spirit. He is always with me, guides me, and I am secure in my eternity. I don’t need anything else.

Soon after becoming a Christian the Holy Spirit led me to take charge of my health. I resisted at first but this pull continued until I finally began walking and also talking with God. I just talked to Him like he was walking along with me and you know what? He was. At first I could walk very little. One lap at Valley Springs Park was the best I could do (1/3 mile). In a week that increased to a mile. God had my life increasing now instead of decreasing. Then in May I entered our hospital 5K race. I had never done anything like this before and there would be several hundred entrants including many of my co-workers, so I was terrified. I mention this story in another blog post. “How Not To Pray” https://thedailysinner.blog/?p=393

The time up to and including that first race created a powerful bond between me and the Lord. The hard but loving lessons He taught me will always remain. God has plans for me and improving my health is part of the plan. Running for my life had begun and since that first 5K the Lord and I have completed many more 5K’s. Next were 10K’s and we recently managed a 20K (13.1 miles) which is a half marathon! Only the Lord knows if a full marathon is in the future. I’ll never forget lessons learned along the way and especially from that first 5K. I live my life for the Lord and the Holy Spirit takes care of the rest.

Eternity Has No Number

God wants people of all ages to serve him. Young people are so valuable when they serve God instead of man. They stand tall as an example and as a pillar of strength for other young people. Elders are called for their wisdom and life experiences. Moses was 80 years old when he began serving the Lord. I’m certainly no Moses, and have seen no burning bush, but I am serving the Lord and my service will continue to grow in the direction in which I am led by the Holy Spirit.

There are things I would like to do before the Lord brings me home. We all have a “bucket list” of some kind. We run for our lives to acquire things because there is only so much time given to us. Some things like knowledge are created on a continuing basis, but nobody is creating more time. There are 60 minutes in an hour for everybody. We all think there is plenty of time to get everything we want and fortunately an average lifetime is enough time, but we may need to change or shorten our list. We must also be honest with ourselves and prioritize the list knowing we have a finite amount of time here on earth.

Psalm 90:12

So teach us to number our days

that we may get a heart of wisdom.

What’s first on your list? maybe to get in shape, have money, buy a new car, get a better job? It’s your own personal list but why not put “your eternity” at the top of the list? An eternity is not one more hour, a year, or even a lifetime. The Meriam Webster dictionary defines eternity simply as “time without end”. When you Believe that Jesus died for your sins and was then resurrected, you will never die but have everlasting life. When you have a personal relationship with Jesus, The Holy Spirit will come and your life will not be left to chance.

We all have this choice to make: We can run for our life to the end, rolling the dice and leaving it to chance or choose a well defined life with an eternal destiny and run for our life with the Lord. It’s one or the other.

John 3:16 “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.