Forgetting

With the summer being so hot this year, I haven't been running as much as I should. It's so easy to put it off and think, "Oh, I'll do it later." But so often that "later" never happens, and soon I have gone two weeks without running. Sad, I know. Tonight I couldn't help but think that my physical running compares to how I'm running spiritual. I've been working a lot, yet the days seem to drag, and to be honest I haven't been close in my walk with the Lord. I haven't been in the Word, and I can feel it. Just like the ground, parched with drought, eagerly drinks up the fresh rain, so is my dry heart when I encounter the Bible. The Word of God is like water for my thirsty soul, and still I find myself spiritually dehydrating myself. I tell myself I read the Bible "later" and like my running, later doesn't happen, and before I know it, two weeks have gone by. There's a verse in Jeremiah that goes like this,

 "My people have committed two evils; they have forsaken Me, the fountain of living waters, and hewn for themselves cisterns--broken cisterns that hold no water." --Jeremiah 2:13

I am those people. I pursue the things that can't satisfy me, and abandon the Living Water. It frustrates me that I do this time and time again, and I tell myself "Why can't you remember?". I am so incredibly thankful that the Lord knows my shortcomings, and He is ever gracious if I confess my sin. Again I am left in awe that the Lord would be merciful to me, a sinner. 

To go along with my running note, I recently watched Chariots of Fire. I love that movie! I wrote down several quotes that challenge and inspire me in my physical and spiritual running, and I thought I would share them (:

"When I run, I feel His pleasure."

"Run for God, and watch the world stand back and wonder."

"You can't put in what God has left out."

"Where does the power come from, to see the race to the end? It comes from within."

"Have you not known? Have you not heard? The everlasting God, the Lord, the Creator of the ends of the earth, neither faints nor is weary. His understanding is unsearchable. He gives power to the weak, and to those who have no might He increases strength. Even the youths shall faint and be weary, and the young men shall utterly fall, but those who wait on the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up on wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint." --Isaiah 40:28-31