Cool Running

Haggai 1:4 Why are you living in luxurious houses while my house lies in ruins?

Back in January God led me to read Haggai. It is about the rebuilding of the Temple in Jerusalem after the exile. God has brought the people back to Jerusalem and told them to rebuild the Temple, but for some reason they are saying 'It is not yet time to rebuild the Lord's house-the Temple.' (v.2) God then asks them the above question. The rest of the book of Haggai proceeds to point out their suffering do to disobedience and reminds them of the promises that come with obedience.

After reading through the whole book (it's short, just 2 chapters) I asked God what He was telling me through this passage. The only thing that was coming to my mind was that I spent a significant amount of time thinking about and planning how to decorate my home, yet my body (the temple of the Holy Spirit) was lying in ruins. I wasn't convinced that this was what the Lord was wanting to tell me so I asked for confirmation. Well, about an hour later a friend called and asked me if I wanted to go to the gym and exercise with her. This was a new friend and we had never talked about going to exercise together before. She told me how she felt God was telling her to live a healthier lifestyle and I felt this was confirmation.

At the beginning of this week my sister called and asked me if I would be interested in walking/running a half marathon with her. I told her I would pray about it. ;) No, seriously, I'm trying to schedule my life around the Lord's will and I wanted to make sure that I could fill a weekend with a half marathon and schedule the training time I would need. So, on Wednesday at Life Group the ice breaker question was "What is one thing that makes you really happy?" We weren't allowed the standard family, spouse, children answers. A newcomer said that running and reaching that point where you feel like you could run forever and your mind is really clear and your body feels really good makes him happy. Well, I told God I had caught that, but that I still wasn't convinced. So yesterday I was reading the comments on a blog I frequent and a comment caught my attention so I went to the commenter's blog. She proceeded to tell a wonderful story about God showing up during her daily run. Ok God, I'm catching on.

Well, the marathon my sister is talking about is the Oklahoma City Bombing Memorial Marathon. I got online this morning to find out more information and to make sure I was hearing God correctly.=) The marathon is the last weekend in April. Exactly 9 weeks away. You can run the full marathon, (26miles) a half marathon, (13 miles) do a relay with a 5 person team, OR you can do the 5K walk/run that is for families and very novice runners. I wasn't sure exactly how long a 5K was so I googled it. The first website listed was called CoolRunning.com and they have a workout schedule that is for 'couch potatoes' (their words) who want to begin running. They say that you can be running a 5K in...

You guessed it! 9 WEEKS!

And the best part is that it only requires 30 minutes a day / 3 days a week! I can totally do that!

So here I go! I will be running the OKC Bombing Memorial 5K and I'm even praying about having Bobo and Bear run it with me. Runner's Digest says that this marathon is a "must run" for all runners so I am excited. This will be my first one ever and might even lead to a lifestyle of running. Who knows?

P.S. a 5k is 3 miles, just FYI =)