Running in Fog

This morning as I went out for my run, the farther I got from my home, the foggier it got. I normally enjoy looking out over Buckeye Lake and seeing the sun rise and seeing the colors, but this morning all I saw was the lake meeting the fog.

I continued running, and when I got away from the lake, the fog had grown. It wasn't the "I hope drivers can see me" kind of fog, the kind where you're scared for your life; the fog just made visibility shorter.

As I ran toward the fog, it reminded me of living a Christian life for God. It can be hard to step out in obedience - step out of the safety of the known (in my case, in town, where it wasn't really foggy at all).

We want to be able to see the whole journey all at once, but it usually doesn't happen like that. In fact, the Holy Spirit usually just shows us the next steps. Not the whole mile, but just the next steps. And he asks us to be obedient in those steps.

In some places, it's more dangerous and harder to continue: around curves where you don't know if a car is coming up, running on the shoulder can be scary (even in clear weather). Some cars move really fast, and some drivers don't turn their lights on when they should.

Besides that, the ditch holds all kinds of distractions.

There are junk food wrappers and pop bottles: these represent the "good tasting stuff" that just distracts us from full obedience, that "fills us" so we don't hunger and thirst for that right relationship with God.

There are beer cans and bottles: that evidence of much self-medication - where we try to fix our problems on our own (or bury those problems).

I even saw pornography in the ditch (I don't think that needs much explanation).

Not only could any of those things keep someone from finishing the run, they can distract from obedience.

But I ran the whole course and finished in time to get showered, get breakfasted, and get Jonathan to preschool.