Runner By Design

If you were holding your car keys in your hand, you wouldn't go around frantically looking for them... right? If your phone was sitting on the table in front of you, you wouldn't be pestering others to call it so that you could find it...right? Right. Because it is silly to look for something that isn't lost. For the past week, I have been frantically trying to regain my confidence back in running. I act as though I am starting from scratch, as though I am just now learning to race. I keep asking God to help me regain my confidence and beliefs in myself and have been left puzzled on why I still feel so lost. That was before today. Today when I woke up, my mom and I started talking about my walk with God. She showed me a devotional about the person God molds us to be in life. It talked about how God gives us special talents and gifts so that we can glorify Him. He doesn't just give us a talent to display on our own...He gives us talents so that when we display them to the world, He can be there too. That's what I have been missing. For the past few weeks, I have questioned my future as a runner. Is this really what God planned for me? Do I really belong out on the track with these girls? Does God want me to stop running and do something else? No, He doesn't want me to stop. God blessed me with a gift of running so that I could use it to glorify Him. But instead I do it in a selfish manner. I continually forget to send Him an invitation to my races. I continually use my talents for my own selfish pleasures and gain. Just because I fell, had a bad race, and got a little behind in training doesn't mean that God took away my talent. He is just showing me that I need to let Him be a part of it with me. So during all this time of looking desperately for my confidence, it really never left. I just lost sight of why God made me a runner. I was trying to rely on myself and myself alone to produce success. Truth is, that is not what produces success. Success happens through God, and without Him, it's like trudging through mud. Sure you can move forward, but it takes you five times the time and five times the effort. God wants to pull you, wants to push you, wants to walk alongside you. This is what my mom helped me to realize today. She helped me to see that I have been searching for something that never left me. She helped me to see that God just wants to be present in my running. She helped me to realize that God made me to be a runner.

I am a runner by design, and will from here on out run to glorify God alone. Thats a promise. 

Who were you designed to be? Whatever it is, do it with a full dose of God.