Satan is reading my blog

Last Wednesday I posted about Philippians 4:1-13. I wrote the post in the morning and uploaded it at lunch time. At 3:00 I got the first phone call. 3:30 I got the second phone call. 5:00 got the third phone call. Contentment? Shattered. I thought at first that God was testing me to see if I could stay contented. But after the third call, I’m pretty sure God was not sitting on his throne in heaven shooting lightening bolts out of his finger at me shouting “TAKE THAT”. God was not testing me. SATAN IS READING MY BLOG. That’s right. He read it and said I’ll show her, and then he hit me in the areas I struggle with the most. I came to this conclusion, because trials and tests sent from God don’t come by way of acts of sin. So if its sin, it is from Satan. I don’t think I’m a special target of Satan, I think he hates us all. I just sometimes feel like I’m getting more attention from him than I can handle.
Of course, it didn’t stop with Wednesday, well into the weekend we were still cleaning up messes, and it will go on for a good while now. Everyday I wait to post this, something else happens, so I’m posting it, hoping it brings relief. I’ll try anything. For those of you who know us, it’s just more of the same, only worse. (Does that make sense?) For those of you who don’t, it just plain isn’t edifying to share. But if you have an extra prayer or two I could certainly use them right now. I have family and kids and life is messy.
Friday night Steve and were in Texas to run a half marathon Saturday morning. We were five hours and two states away, and Steve spent most of Friday night on the phone because of family mess. I told him when we got back to the hotel that I had been looking forward this for two months, but now I just wanted to go home. Saturday morning we went to the LBJ Grasslands trail and ran 13.3 miles (I know a marathon is 13.1, but on this trail it was a little longer, and trust me, that 2 tenths of mile does matter. I ran it, I’m counting it.) And I didn’t think about the mess at home at all while we were running.
God really spoke to me about something through this. I have trained for this for 8 months and for the last 2 months, extremely hard and very seriously. This took time. Hours running and cross training. It took money. I needed the right shoes and clothes, paid registration to run, for a hotel, etc. It took effort. I had to make myself train when it was cold outside or when I was tired, because I knew on race day, I was going to have needed every minute of training. I had to go out and stash bottled water along my running path so it would be there when I needed it. There was pain involved and my blisters have blisters of their own.
When we got to the mile 8 aid station, we were running slower than we had planned. Since Steve needed to be at church by 5, and I felt like I was letting him down (this is ongoing thing in my life, it is solely MY problem, not anything he ever puts on me), so mile 8 to mile 11.5 we ran hard. Hard is not the equivalent of fast, it just indicates increased effort, but it was the fastest 3.5 miles we ran. When we got to the last aid station with 1.8 miles left, it was exciting and exhilarating, and I was exhausted. At the next gate, a lady on a horse cheered us on and the person in front of me asked her how much further, about three quarters of a mile? She said not even that much, maybe a half mile. At that point I thought if the finish line was 10 feet in front of me I still wouldn’t make it. But somehow my mind overpowered my body, and I ran. I RAN ACROSS THE FINISH LINE in 196th place. Know what? It feels like first.
God gave me a thought this morning. Steve has been working with a trainer. He does whatever his trainer says, because he trusts BJ. He has changed his workout and tweaked his eating habits again. I trust Steve. I do what he tells me. I don’t have these pictures to post, because the professional photog took them during the race and I have to order paper copies, (which I did). But this is one I took while I was running, what I saw the majority of the race, Steve's back.

There is a not a picture of me that Steve is not in the same frame. When he is in front of me, what the picture doesn’t show is that he looked over his shoulder to make sure he didn’t get too far ahead. When I’m in front of Steve he is right behind me, close enough to reach out and push me if he had to. If Steve trusts his trainer to get him in shape and take care of him, and I trust Steve to get me in shape, and work out with me and run with me, then I should trust God the same way. He is training me in my spiritual race. And he knows the training program I need. All the trials and tests are part of my spiritual training, so that I can run hard when I fall behind where I should be and I’m able to make up ground at miles 8-11.5, even though I’m exhausted by life. When I get to 12.8 miles with a half mile left, and I feel like there is no way to keep going, not even another 10 feet, kind of like today, I need my training to kick in so I can run across the finish line. God is not setting me up to fail, he isn’t asking me to do anything he hasn’t prepared me for. And if I lag behind him when it gets hard, he doesn’t leave me, he’s looking over his shoulder saying come on, (or even reaching back to pull me up the hill, Steve did literally pull me the last 5 feet up one hill), and sometimes, he might just get right behind me, close enough to push me if needed.
And I saw great results from my training. I lost 13 pounds in the two months of serious training. I am stronger physically, mentally, and even spiritually from this process. I feel like I ran well, and I got to hear the most important person in my life tell me he was proud of me. So as I liken the trials and tests to my pain and suffering, when I think about the rewards from God at the end of the race, hearing him say he is proud of me would really be cool.
Philippians 3:14 I press on to reach the end of the race and receive the heavenly prize for which God, through Christ Jesus, is calling us.
BTW – got my training plan for the marathon.