Running Between the Moments

This week I’ve been extra busy while my lovely wife is away with friends. Along with working from home, I’ve been keeping one eye on the schooling of my 13-year-old while picking up around the house, thinking about and preparing meals, maintaining my devotions and Bible reading, and finding the time to taper down for a race coming at me in a few days. I find myself a bit distracted. Yet God’s calm and steadiness are all the more important to me now. In these seasons of high activity it seems that my heart yearns all the more for Him and His quiet strength.

So it was with careful timing that I inserted an hour run into yesterday’s crazy mix. Twenty minutes after 4pm I was standing in Purgatory Park considering multiple circuits to fill in the available hour’s time. This is an easy run with slight to moderate hills. It is a good workout and would not exhaust me. Of course, this was by intention today. I came for a gentle, tapering workout not a killer, flat-lining kind of experience. This run was just to keep me tight and ready for Saturday’s 50K run. With these considerations I headed in a clockwise direction, up and away from the parking area. It was 60F with a NW wind at 12mph and gusts to 25 with a few clouds drifting high in the sky, bright sun filling the air, and a rich dose of glory covering everything. Refreshing in the face of God.

I was running between the moments, slipping my workout into an available time-slice of my life. Each loop of the park is 1.23 miles. I ran 4 circuits plus a little to register an even 5 miles in 52:21; a 10:27 pace with 924 feet ascending and 845 descending. In just this sprinkle of time, I had managed to enjoy a full measure of God’s beauty, had managed to push my body just a little bit further, and had found the time to pray and meditate on God’s Word. What a feast! What a time to find Him wonderful! A few days ago I was reading the Psalm 90, The Prayer of Moses the Man of God. In part, he said:

Lord, you have been our dwelling place in all generations.
Before the mountains were brought forth,
or ever you had formed the earth and the world,
from everlasting to everlasting you are God.

So teach us to number our days that we may get a heart of wisdom.
Return, O Lord! How long? Have pity on your servants!
Satisfy us in the morning with your steadfast love,
that we may rejoice and be glad all our days.

[Psalm 90:1-2, 12-14]

I pray that I would be swift to see Him as from everlasting to everlasting, and that I would know Him more deeply and securely as my dwelling place. I pray that I would learn – truly learn - to number my days, to weigh them most carefully in scales He would desire. Oh, and I pray that my satisfaction would honestly be in His steadfast love, a rich harvest of rejoicing and gladness of heart. I pray that I would be swift of heart. Oh, carry me Lord as I run between the moments. Help me to always run hard and true.