Blog

Jocko Willink is a retired Navy Seal. He is very serious about discipline. He takes a picture of his watch displaying the time he wakes up every morning.

4:30.

Over the years I’ve gotten used to waking up early. As a mom, it’s part of the job description for long stretches of time. Most people think of waking up early as a punishment and sleeping late as a luxury.

Each person has different strengths and weaknesses. Most people have a certain time of day when they’re most productive. I only lately have started thinking about this.

After listening to a little bit of Jocko and reading what others have written on productivity, I realized that I work best in the morning, the early morning. I think more clearly in the morning. Conversely, I realized that after dinnertime, I am less able to focus on tasks that require a lot of concentration and creativity. That time of day is better reserved for things like laundry or weight training or reading.

So about a month ago I started setting the alarm for 4:30 and framed it in my mind as a golden opportunity to do the most important things first – Bible reading and prayer.

I have loved it. I look forward to it. It’s strange but that time of day is so quiet and peaceful. There is no worry that I’ll be interrupted. After only a month I have made more strides in consistent prayer than I have in maybe my whole life and I can already see and feel the benefits. There is a peace and calm that is transforming me. There is less of a spirit of fretting and rushing.

There is still time to run too. That has been a long time concern for me. I want to run in the morning but I want to give more priority to time in the Word and in prayer.

Is waking up at 4:30 more godly? No. Not at all. You could wake up at 3:30 and not redeem that time in God honoring ways.

4:30 is working for me. I may not always be able to do it, but for now it’s been a great blessing.

“…who gave himself for our sins to deliver us from this present evil age…” Galatians 1:4

There is a spirit at work in the whole world. Often we overlook this because we’re concerned with our own lives, but God looks at the world in a way that we don’t. He can see the prevailing systems of thought that run through the world and governments and societies.

Sin isn’t just prevalent in individual human hearts but in whole societies and it conspires to breed all sorts of evil. It ends up contributing to all sorts of evil and dysfunction that we see reported in the nightly news, and now hour by hour on Twitter.

Sin isn’t just a thing we do, an aberrant single action we take against God or against one another. It is a power that influences and pollutes whole families and cities and nations.

Jesus not only gave himself up for us so that we may be delivered from our sins. He also did that so we may be delivered from this present evil age. An age is a particular period of history. Jesus has delivered us out of this present evil age.

Have you ever thought of your life in this way, that you’re living in the midst of a specific age?

What does it mean to be delivered out of this present evil age? What implications does it have? I think 1 John 2:15-16 has insight here. It encourages us to not love the world or the things in the world. And then Romans 12:2 tells us to not be conformed to this world. The Greek word for world means “age”.

There is a prevailing spirit, a dominant mindset that pervades this world. In Ephesians 2 we are told that we once walked according to this mindset, according to the course of this world. There is a spirit at work in the sons of disobedience. Those who don’t know Christ are under the influence, whether they realize or not, of this spirit. Have you ever wondered why people are influenced the way they are, why whole societies lean toward certain mindsets and behaviors?

We have been delivered out of, freed from the bondage to this spirit. We have been liberated into obedience to Christ. Before, we weren’t able to please God but now, in Christ, we are able to please our Father and have been adopted into his family. Now we must live according to this new identity always reminding ourselves that we aren’t controlled by the spirit of this present evil age.

Praise God that he has, in Christ, delivered us out of this present evil age! There is a new age to come for which we are being prepared and will live in with God.

Complete, untainted joy is unattainable – apart from God.

“In your presence is fullness of joy.” Psalm 16

The fullness of joy Jesus describes in John 15 is dependent upon abiding in Him and living according to His commandments. Another way of putting that is knowing and following after God’s heart.  And God’s heart is only understood when looking at the whole story of the Bible. The whole story is that God is on a mission to redeem a people for himself and spread his glory throughout the nations. I am just now realizing how the spread of God’s glory and the experience of joy are related to evangelism.

I’ve always felt like evangelism was a duty, a duty I wasn’t very good at. If opportunities arose I would do my best, but I knew others were more gifted. I looked at it as a subject in school, content to just get a passing grade. But what if sharing the gospel, sharing the love of Christ is intimately related to the heartbeat of God?

Psalm 96 talks about singing to God. All the earth is exhorted to sing to God, to bless God and tell of his salvation. So often I have glossed over verse 3 – “Declare his glory among the nations, his marvelous works among all the peoples.” Here is the connection I’ve been missing! Singing and praising God is directly connected to declaring his glory among all the people. Joy leads to missions, and missions leads to joy. John Piper puts it another way – “Missions exist because worship doesn’t.”

God desires for all to worship him. Not because he wants his ego stroked but because he desires the whole earth to be filled with his glory and only then will we have that fullness of joy that Psalm 16 talks about.

In Psalm 27 David asks for one thing – to dwell in God’s house and gaze upon his beauty.

God’s glory is the manifestation of his eternal and transcendent beauty. This is what David wants to look at; this is the joy his heart desires.

When we declare God’s glory to the nations and to our neighbors we are calling them to joy. We shouldn’t want to keep that joy to ourselves.

I ran my ninth marathon on March 17. I had run this one two times before and was eager to better my past times, and experiences.

Actually, I hadn’t had a good marathon in about eight years and was pretty frustrated.

I told people that my goal was to feel strong at the end. I kind of set that up as the definition of success.

No suffering = Success

No struggle = Goal achieved

Eliud Kipchoge is one of the greatest marathoners of all time. He set a new world record last year in Berlin – 2:01:39 – more than twice as fast as my pace. He says this about the marathon – “Marathon is life.” What he means is that the marathon is a metaphor for the struggles of life. It is rare that someone will run a marathon without struggle, feeling great the whole 26.2.

I had a great day on March 17. God was gracious to give me good weather and my best time in 8 years. But I didn’t feel good the whole time. In fact, my legs didn’t feel very fresh at all.

Thankfully I was running with a friend and my desire to encourage him helped me as well. Usually miles 15-19 can be a mental wasteland where negative thoughts start to overwhelm. I was determined to not let that happen so every once in a while I told my friend we were doing awesome no matter how I actually felt.

Around mile 19 my friend had to stop for the bathroom and he told me to go on if I felt good. And I did feel good! The next 3-4 miles were very good and I found myself praising God out loud.

But after mile 22 it really started to get real. I wanted to be done! I had to keep digging deep to find positive energy whatever my legs were telling me. The last stretch was all uphill and I didn’t feel particularly strong. I usually try to sprint across any finish line, but getting across was good enough. I finished!

Reflecting back on the race, I understood more what Kipchoge was talking about. Life doesn’t feel good all the time. It can be pretty terrible actually. But feeling strong all the time can’t be the measure of success in this life. And feeling strong the whole 26.2 can’t be the marathon’s definition of success either. The measure of success in life and in the marathon is how you face the adversity.

Have you ever equated being debt free with godliness? I have and I’m realizing the foolishness in trying to do that kind of math.

Life is messy. Things break all the time. If your goal in life is to get to a point where nothing breaks and you always have money in the bank to cover every emergency, I’m afraid you’ll live a life of perpetual frustration.

The Bible talks about the dangers of debt, but I think it talks about the dangers of loving money a lot more. And you can love money even when your bank account isn’t flush. Loving money is about making money your master, serving it and obeying its demands. Loving money means looking to it for security. A goal of being debt free can be your master.

It’s a worthy goal to be debt free but if that goal drives you to be miserly, unkind, frustrated and discontent I think you’ve gotten off track.

1 Timothy 6:6 talks about the gain we get when we combine godliness and contentment. Hebrews chapter 13 talks about keeping ourselves free from the love of money and being content realizing that God will never leave us or forsake us.

Being debt free is a good thing and a worthy goal, but life happens. Cars break down, knees get injured and need surgery. Sometimes it seems these messy things come in waves and we’re tempted to complain and say it’s not fair. “Why can’t I ever get ahead?!”

I think our perspective is wrong. Getting ahead? What does that mean? Is that our goal, to get to a point in this life where we’re fat and happy surrounded by all the shiny things of this world?

Godliness with contentment is great gain, no matter what your bank account says, because we came into this world with nothing and we will leave this world with nothing.

Being debt free doesn’t always equate to godliness. But being content no matter our circumstances always does.

I still can’t believe I did it. Did I really commit to this?

I registered for a 100 mile race. Yes, 100. The icon of ultrarunning. I am afraid.

It’s a little over 5 months away and looms as Everest in my imagination.

What was I thinking? Why am I doing this?

I just ran my 10th marathon two weeks ago. It was tough. My legs betrayed me. I’ve been recovering and strengthening some important muscle groups that were too weak. How do I expect to run 4 times as long?

I’ve been fascinated by ultramarathons ever since I learned of them. The events, the people, the training. I’ve even completed a couple of them: two 50Ks and two 40 milers. It’s good to have a healthy fear of these events. Anytime you run a marathon distance and beyond, anything can happen. Things that never happened in training can crop up: inexplicable pain, weird reactions to food or chafing in bizarre places.

So why? Why am I planning to attempt to run 100 miles? I’ve read somewhere that it’s a good idea to have a reason before you put yourself through up to 30 hours of pain and suffering. I’ve been thinking about my why lately and I think it comes down to the challenge. I’ve read of others accomplishing this feat – all sorts of people of various ages and sizes and abilities. Check this out! I’ve always wondered if I could do it. I’ve done 41.2 miles twice already. Can I do more?

It’s a challenge, an unknown and I’m afraid. I think that’s a good place to start. It can only get more interesting from here, right?

I’m lately realizing the benefits of humility. Despite what everyone tells you, you don’t want to experience constant success in every area of your life. This is why choosing to do hard things, like running marathons, can be so beneficial.

The marathon will humble you. You may be able to run a predictably fast 5K, 10K or even a half marathon. But once you get past 20 miles, all bets are off.

I’m used to doing well at most things I try. And if I fail, I can usually figure out the problem and fix it. Not so the marathon. I’ve run 10 of them so far and have only been happy with 2 of my performances. And what makes it harder to accept is the time you’ve invested in training and preparing for the race only to have things go wrong on race day, sometimes for no apparent reason.

This past Saturday I realized before the halfway mark that there was a problem. My legs weren’t working properly and the muscles that were supposed to be playing a supporting role were trying to take on all the responsibility. That resulted in premature fatigue and a slower pace mile after mile.

I had to quickly reframe and choose to accept what was going on. I decided to enjoy the course, which was in a town I’d never been to. I enjoyed the fountains and the beautiful houses. I whooped for the guys sitting in their driveway playing Tina Turner’s “Simply the Best”. I searched for little kids on the side of the course so I could give them a fist bump or high five. And I stopped two times to pet a dog!

How do you grade a marathon performance? I’m not sure anymore. Is only a PR worthy of an A+? What if you get injured but soldier on to finish anyway?

The marathon is a perfect analogy for life because we can prepare for the many different challenges of life, but in the end we have to realize that we’re not in control of outcomes. We’re only in control of how we react to the challenges God gives us.

What happened at the end of my race perfectly encapsulates that. About two miles from the finish I connected with a guy who was running his first marathon. He was struggling with cramps throughout his whole body, even his feet! So I started praying for him out loud and he says, “In Jesus’ name, Amen!” We encouraged one another up the next couple hills telling each other, “We’ve got this!” When we got to the long downhill to the finish, I look over to check to see if he’s ok and he’s on his phone Facetiming his wife. She’s telling him how proud she is of him, and he’s crying. It was such a great moment and I’m so thankful I got a peek of it.

This guy finished his first marathon. I finished my 10th. I am learning how important it is to overcome the challenges and finish with a grateful heart. I will never be the fastest runner. I may never get another PR. But that teaches me to be humble and not clutch at running like an idol, demanding it to give me what only God can.

Despite what I thought on race day, I’ll probably keep striving to get better and stronger and faster, but PRs will eventually go away. My body is getting older every second. I can try to fight time with stricter diets and more intense workouts but time will win eventually.

So was this marathon a C-? I don’t know. In one sense it was, but in another sense, the most important sense, it was way above average.

The end of the story takes us back to the beginning. In Genesis, God created mankind and placed him in a garden. Adam received Eve and together they were to take dominion. We know what happened in Genesis 3 and from then on God has worked to bring man back to himself in the most beautiful story of redemption.

In Revelation we see the culmination of God’s work. Instead of Adam we see Christ, the second Adam, receiving his bride the Church. Instead of a garden there is a city. And instead of a tree that is off limits, there is the tree of life yielding twelve kinds of fruits and leaves for the healing of the nations.

There is no more curse. There is no more pain. There are no more tears.

There’s only perfect unbroken fellowship with God.

“No longer will there be anything accursed, but the throne of God and of the Lamb will be in it, and his servants will worship him. They will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads. And night will be no more. They will need no light of lamp or sun, for the Lord God will be their light, and they will reign forever and ever.” Revelation 22:3-5

90(ish) days through the whole Bible has been a kind of whirlwind. I wasn’t sure if it was possible and I didn’t know what I would get out of it. Like I’ve said in previous posts, the benefit of doing this is that you see the whole landscape of Scripture more clearly. You can’t get bogged down in the details or distracted by questions.

Instead of seeing the back of the tapestry with all the knotted threads and mixed up colors, you see the front in all its splendor. And the splendor of it all is found in the weaver of that tapestry. What he began in Genesis, he finishes in Revelation, to the praise of his glory.

“Worthy are you, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power, for you created all things, and by your will they existed and were created.” Revelation 4:11

Yes! Come, Lord Jesus!

Paying attention to the personal greetings at the end of Paul’s letters can yield interesting but also distressing details. At the end of Colossians and Philemon Paul mentions a man named Demas. He is a fellow worker in the gospel who is known to the churches. He has traveled with Paul and spent a lot of time with him.

However, at the end of 2 Timothy we read this about Demas:

“Do your best to come to me soon. For Demas, in love with this present world, has deserted me and gone to Thessalonica.” 2 Timothy 4:9-10

What happened to Demas? He left Paul and possibly left the gospel work. Paul says he fell in love with this present world. John warns of something similar in his first epistle:

“Do not love the world, or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world – the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride in possessions – is not from the Father but is from the world. And the world is passing away along with its desires, but whoever does the will of God abides forever.” 1 John 2:15-17

What does it mean to be in love with the world? Isn’t the world something God created for our enjoyment? Definitely God has created the world itself to display his glory. “The heavens declare the glory of God and the sky above proclaims his handiwork.” Psalm 19 But to fall in love with the world as Demas did doesn’t mean he was spending his time admiring mountains and sunsets. Loving the world in the way John explains means having your heart captured by worldly mindsets and passions. You lust after the what the world thinks is important: power, prestige, wealth.

The love of the world and the things of the world pass away. They are temporal and fade. Only the love of God and those who do the will of God abide forever.

Hopefully this was not the end of the story for Demas.