There are actually several areas of my life where I think God is getting a fair amount of entertainment, but right now we'll just focus on one. This involves my long and arduous battle with trying to stay fit. Some friends and family are aware of my somewhat regimented workout schedule that includes the Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday jogging requirement. And it must be done outdoors. I hold great disdain for the treadmill. I just get way too hot. So some of my friends know my schedule, but obviously so does God. Because every time I get ready to run, I have some sort of new and exciting weather event to deal with. I've been known to say that if you want to know if the weather's gonna be bad, just check to see if I'm supposed to run. If I am, it's gonna suck. As an example, over the last two weeks, I've had to put up with 3 wind advisories, 2 bouts of rain, and snow on the ground. Now in the intervening days, it's been down right balmy. But today may have been the ultimate example.
I knew it was supposed to be chilly, so I was already outfitted in my cold weather gear. Basically, if it's below 50 I go with a long-sleeve shirt. Today, it was 45 but I sensed a bitter north wind, so I also added some light gloves. Well, sometime between me getting the paper and then leaving for my run, there was a development. For when I walked outside it was raining. I am now convinced that God did not want me to run today, but I wasn't so at the time. I paused and squinted at the rain. It was steady, but not heavy (not light either). I was sure it was just a momentary shower, so I thought,"Screw it," and took off. About 1000 ft into it, I realized I had probably miscalculated. At about a quarter mile I found some slight shelter under a tree and stopped to go over my options. I could just turn around and settle for a half mile run. Despite the rain and bitterly cold north wind(a lovely combination), I decided that was the wuss' way out. I tried to think of another route that would still provide me an adequate work-out, but I was stumped. Then the devil appeared on my right shoulder. "You can do it," he said. "Look, if there's a tree here, they'll be trees along the way. I won't be that bad." I thought for a moment and it seemed that, yes, there would be trees. "But," God said(obviously God is on my other shoulder),"What about the rain?!...and the wind?!... and the plummeting temperature?" Valid reasons to turn around. "But those are just excuses, plus, if you don't care about your own fitness, who will?" And with that I was off, again. I tried to run toward tree cover, but quickly realized that I had been tricked by the Prince of Darkness. Plus, it's still kinda winter, so the few trees there were might have been suffering from a leaf shortage. By the midway point, my legs were a nice red color, and I was completely soaked. Shirts, shorts, shoes, and socks. Plus, the water constantly running down your face doesn't help with the whole breathing thing. So, right after this, God decided to mock me for my foolishness. His method of communication was a loud crack of thunder. Yeah. I'm an idiot, but I'm not a complete fool (Maybe). If I think there's a chance of lightning, I don't go out. But here I am, a mile and half from home, and God's getting a good chuckle out of me because now I don't know whether to run toward the trees or away from them. I schlepped along, rain and thunder and all, and started to feel quite heavy. Near the end, I had to run pass several cars, and boy did they get a kick out of me. For that one moment, they were sure that here was one person is the world that was obviously dumber than they were, and they were right. So as a lesson, if your Heavenly Father is telling you not to go running, don't, it's not worth it. Unless you count beating your personal best time by almost a entire minute, which I don't .
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