My two older sisters were the natural-born runners of the family. (I’m still unsure if I’m thankful that gene skipped me or not). It’s obvious they enjoyed running to some degree because they both ran cross country and track all four years of high school. One of them even went on to run in college. Running takes a lot of discipline and, evidently, they developed the skill well enough to push themselves during a race. I, however, did not acquire the skill for making my body work so hard it wanted to throw up.
Every now and again they would enter what was called a “fun run.” And I always remember my dad saying, “run for fun, what kind of fun is that?” And him and I would laugh and laugh and laugh while my sisters just ignored the cackling. The truth of the matter is, running really isn’t all that fun because its foundation is rooted in patterned discipline. Every day after school my sisters would run miles and work on their sprints with their teammates and coach. This pattern disciplined developed their bodies to run 3.1 miles on race day. They were prepared for the day of battle if you will.
I’ve recently discovered that I’m lacking in patterned discipline in certain areas of life. Sure, my discipline for running is in the negative right now but that’s not really the point here. My discipline is off in a much larger area of life: prayer. When I made Jesus Lord (sole owner of) rather than just Savior of my life on July 6, 2020, I began a tug-of-war battle with him for ultimate control of my life. I’ve only recently come to the realization that I did not fully release control. It’s difficult to fully surrender something you always thought was yours in the first place. But my life isn’t mine, it never was.
“Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body.” – 1 Corinthians 6: 19-20
I will admit this verse is taken a bit out of context for my purposes, but it illustrates my point from the physical perspective. These other verses hit the nail a little more on the head for where I’m trying to land this plan:
“But I do not account my life of any value nor as previous to myself, if only I may finish my course and the ministry that I received from the Lord Jesus, to testify to the gospel of the grace of God.” – Acts 20:24
“I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.” – Galatians 2:20
By failing to give God full control of my life, I’ve really been missing out. His will for our life is the very best option he can offer for us. And usually that offer is beyond anything we could think of. It generally has nothing to do with worldly wealth or prosperity and everything to do with thriving through the Spirit. This can look very different for everyone.
Walking in obedience to the Lord generally isn’t easy and very rarely is it comfortable. I would guess it’s not nearly as uncomfortable as getting your hands and feet nailed to a cross. That’s something to think about when my flesh tells me I don’t want to do something just because it’s uncomfortable. I was convicted, once again, by the Lord through the words of David Brockman (link here) as he dissected Colossians 1:12-14.
“When you’re going in any direction, if you get one degree off, you won’t end up where you’re supposed to. So, how do we keep from being distracted? Give thanks for what he’s already done.” – DB
It was like a fishhook into my skin. I knew instantly that the Lord was speaking directly to me about my lack of a prayer life. I won’t sit here and say that I was completely ignorant to the fact that my prayer life was lacking, because I was most certainly aware of it. In fact, I had made some desperate attempts to work on it in the past. And although there were some glimmers of improvement, nothing was ever sustainable. I couldn’t figure out how I could beg the Lord, fully believing he would answer me (Mark 11:24), to help me get more comfortable with praying and to do it all day long and then fail miserably. Every time I attempted to fix my flesh on this, I failed miserably almost immediately.
This failure was the ultimate roadblock for me. It falsely told me that I wouldn’t be successful in this pursuit, so I might as well quit before I ever started. This is the recipe the enemy lives for. He latched on to it and the cycle has continued for at least a year now. It’s mostly been related to prayer, but it’s also managed to seep into other areas of my walk with Christ. Once you let the enemy take control of something in your life, it’s significantly easier for him to reach other parts of you. Nice.
I read something in a book about battling desires of the flesh and it was another one of those fishhooks. This one sunk deep. The book was discussing a man’s battle with desires of the flesh. He talked about how when he first waged the war, he was pretty much always losing the battle. But as he kept up his pattern of discipline to keep fighting the good fight, things shifted. His persistence paid off as he started to see some victories. Even though those still didn’t outweigh the loses, they were still victories. He continued this pattern of discipline until the victories finally outweighed the loses.
The battle I’ve been waging has been based on my flesh needing, no HAVING, to see those victories in order to continue the pattern of discipline. What I had failed to realize was that the patterned discipline is the foundation I had to establish and practice before I could see victory. I also didn’t understand that those failures were okay, as long as they didn’t lead me to quit. Previously, that’s exactly what those loses did. I quit because I thought I had failed beyond the course set for victory.
Just like my dad said, running for fun isn’t fun at all. But that popsicle at the end sure did taste sweet. Or so I’m told anyways. The same holds true for battles of the flesh. Practicing patterned discipline isn’t enjoyable, but that’s not what we do it for. We’re fighting against our flesh because it’s generally steering us wrong. That battle is in response to walking out obedience to the Lord and there’s nothing sweeter than the sweet that comes from this.
“Yeah, wonder why I’m feeling alone Saying God is quiet, but my Bible is closed I ‘on’t make time for You, then I get mad Heart so cold, that I think it might crack I don’t understand how I’m living like that God take the wheel, ‘cause I think I might crash.” – “Bad Dreams” by Henrik (listen here)
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