Submission

"Now if you are going to win any battle you have to do one thing. You have to make the mind run the body. Never let the body tell the mind what to do. The body will always give up. It is always tired in the morning, noon, and night. But the body is never tired if the mind is not tired."
- George S. Patton

I'm in the process of training for a half-marathon that is to be run in August. It's a ten-week training schedule and I'm on the second week of it. I was scheduled to run three miles on Monday, but since I elected to run in the hottest part of the day, I quit at two miles. I was supposed to run four miles today, so I waited until after 9:00 this evening to run. However, for whatever reason it was, I only completed three miles.

I feel a battle going on between my body and mind each time I run. I've lost this battle twice this week and am feeling discouraged by this. It makes me think of what Paul said: "I beat my body and make it my slave so that after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified for the prize." I think one of Satan's greatest strategies is whispering into our minds when we're vulnerable. When I'm starting to breathe hard while running, I want to quit, so that's what I've done on my last two runs. When I put off getting into the Word until right before I go to bed at night, I justify skipping out on reading and lose the battle once again.

All this to say that it's tough bringing my body to submission. Therefore, I'm going to take a baby step and do this: For the next four days, I'm going to get up 30 minutes earlier in order to read the Word. Furthermore, I'm going to follow my running schedule closely and run three miles tomorrow and five miles on Saturday. If I can look back on Sunday and say that I beat my body into submission, I'll be a living testament to that verse.