My Daily Joy

Every morning when I get up I have a choice: where am I going to attempt to get my joy from?  The other day as I was preparing for a hard tempo run I was preparing my spirit by listening to www.iBethel.tv when a song played singing “all my delight is in You.”  These words challenged my thinking heading into the workout.  I woke up feeling good and hoping to hit a really good last tempo run before I headed to Houston for the upcoming US Half Marathon championships on Saturday.  But as I thought about the words of the song I realized that all of my delight wasn’t yet in God, part of it was, but part of it was in the outcome of my workout.  I renewed my mind so that ALL of my delight was in Him.

I do believe that God wants me to enjoy my workout, but the ultimate question is: what is the way to get the most amount of joy out of the workout?  From what I have experienced the way I get the most joy out of my workouts is when I am most connected to God while I run.  When I am focusing on my connection with God He shows up and I am always deeply satisfied.

So as it played out it was a particularly windy morning on Lake Mary Road in Flagstaff, Arizona making for a difficult day for a fast tempo run.  The way out was slightly downhill, but into the wind making for a slower split.  On the way back I had a tailwind, but a series of Boston-esq challenging hills, however all of that faded away as I was going after God more than performance.  The funny thing is that on the way back I ran way faster than I thought was possible for me at this point in my training.  God loves to grant the desires of His childrens heart when they delight in Him.