Caution: Walk…Don’t Run

I love to run!  It’s enthralling, intense and allows my ‘Type A’ personality to be drenched with sweat so I can feel like I’ve accomplished something.  However, on one particular day I set the treadmill on 30 minutes and ran non- stop, something happened.  I never reached my target heart rate of 170 beats per minute and the sweat seemed to stay in my pores.  Even worse, when I looked at my calories burned it stated 200 instead of my usual 300 calories burned in 30 minutes.  I was then determined to add some more hills and a faster pace, anything to make my workout more intense, but something deep down in my belly told me to just walk, not run.  I then knew that in my physical body, something drastic changed. 

   Like my physical state, I strived for so much in the beginning of my walk with Christ that it caused me many, many regrets.  I thought my actions had to be intense and filled with heavenly behaviors.  I felt super guilty if I enjoyed myself by reading a fiction book instead of Joyce Myers and I believed a relationship with God was based on my work in ministry.  I even felt like God had a checklist with him in Heaven.  On some days he checked off the entire good column and on other days, He checked off one good box.  I knew for sure He was tallying those boxes up and based on what I got, I would receive either the plagues of locust or Manna from Heaven.  God was more like Santa to me, and less like my Heavenly Father.  

Many of us may suffer with the ‘work till you earn God’s love syndrome’.   Like running non- stop on a treadmill, we spend more time doing the works of God than spending time with God.  We think if we do the right things, then we will be blessed and if we do the wrong things, then we will be cursed.   Our perception of God is so discombobulated that we are willing to forgo a relationship to achieve religion.  Many of us receive the accolades of man, but lack a spiritual friendship with the one who created us.  We continue to run, when all Jesus is really asking us to do is to walk with him in union. 

It is possible to stop striving if you’re a ‘Type A’ personality like me.  It means being okay with failures, not always being in control and taking a break from the business of life.  It is simply enjoying the time when you just walk in fellowship with God.  For many people it will mean to slow down and reset your mind to usher out some previously held beliefs about God and to begin filling yourself with the truth of God’s word. “Cease striving and know that I am God” (Psalms 46:10). Today, I work very hard to simply cease and enjoy my walk with Christ.




                                                                                  Blogger Sommer Nicole Sigler......I AM HER