Lessons in Humility

I have this saying that I joke about with friends, "I don't do things I'm not good at!"...now it is a joke...but really, I'm prideful and it's true. For example, baseball: I LOVE BASEBALL! I love to watch baseball and cheer for my boys, (aka the Red Sox), and basically everything about it...except playing it...why? "I don't do things I'm not good at!" The term "lacking" doesn't even begin to describe my hand-eye coordination:-)

Well...sometimes doing things that you are not good at teaches you about humility and not being so prideful.

I had another "hit upside the head by the Holy Spirit" moment this weekend whilst running the 13.1 Chicago race. Talk about a lesson in humility! I love running, but I am neither fast nor driven to go the distance....however, I think the attempt to push through and persevere is a journey well worth taking.

At mile 8.5 I decided that running is stupid and I didn't want to do it anymore. To bad for me the only way back to the starting line was to keep going. You see the start line was also the finish line.

I foolishly asked God to use this race to teach me something....careful what you pray for! Our God is faithful and although He does not often answer the way we think He should, He does answer!...so...little less then five miles to the end on the race and I decide that running is stupid....what was actually happening is I saw all these people passing me and as each one went by I though, "He is faster then me, she is faster then me, he is faster, him too...dang...all these people are better then I am!!!"

That's when Jesus smacked me upside the head and reminded me that this is my race, not their, and the only one I'm racing against is myself....i would like to say that at that point I kicked it up a gear and ran with all my heart...well...let's just say God wasn't finished teaching me about humility.

If you have ever ran semi-long distances, you know that after a certain point it becomes a mental battle....yes there are points when your body says stop, or slow down, or WHAT THE HECK ARE YOU DOING TO ME!?!....but mostly quitting or poor performance comes more out of the mental struggle then anything else. For me, at 8.5 miles into my race I hit my wall...my mental barrier. My body could have kept going at a decent speed, but my mind was playing games.

Again, foolishly I had asked God to use this race to teach me about perseverance, endurance, focus, finishing the race, and to teach me about myself....what I learned? Well, I learn that I am a pansy, who likes to complain and compare myself to all those around me rather then focusing on the goal and pushing through. Let's call this phenomenon, "easily distracted"!

But, I did push through...and although my time was not anywhere near where I thought it would be or where I wanted it to me, I realized that it was a starting out point. This is the beginning of the journey...not the end...not the end all be all, but the point to push off from.

In the end...what did God teach me? That this "race" we are running is our race. No one else's. We can't compare our "race" to anyone's. Comparing ourselves, getting caught up in the distractions gets us no where fast. If we want to persevere and push towards the goal, then we need to work, and most importantly we need to lay aside our pride and push on towards the goal. Because that is the only way to get the prize.