Just Being There

There was nothing remarkable about this morning's run.  Not very long.  Not very fast.  An often-run course.  Nothing to set it apart from dozens of the same run over the past few years.  And maybe that is the point.  Looking back over my training logs you would find that most of my runs are unremarkable.  There have been a few that are on a different or particularly interesting or challenging course.  A few that are of a notable distance of pace.  But mostly just regular, ordinary, unremarkable runs.  But without the ordinary runs, there would be no foundation for the extra-ordinary.  If I expected every run to be a new mountaintop experience, then I would be quickly and deeply disappointed.  Yet all too often, I tend to devalue the ordinary in my pursuit of the spectacular, stunning, or remarkable.

For example, I am much more willing to talk about the Goofy Race and Half Challenge (half marathon one day followed by full marathon the next) that I ran last January than the dozens of 3-5 mile runs since then.  Why?  Because anyone can run the ordinary runs, but I don't know anyone else who has done the Goofy.  I think that I look for, and value, that which is unusual or unique above the regular.  But I believe that there may be a greater benefit to holding the regular in just as high a regard as the unique.

But there is certainly not a lot of support for that view in our culture.  There is no award for the "Most Ordinary" and Mr. Regular doesn't get headlines.  Yet the foundation for extraordinary achievements--whether in one person or collectively--is ordinary, day after day, consistency.

Think about relationships.  When a good friend is going through a difficult time, what I have heard most often is that what was valued was not the witty words of wisdom, but just being there.  Not the "solution", but a willingness to walk together through the darkness until the break of dawn.  Just being there.

I wonder how often we are looking for God to do something spectacular and stunning, and yet He offers to just be there.  Day in and day out.  When things are good and when life is challenging.  He never promised that He would always appear with craches of thunder and bright flashes of lightning.  But he does promise:

Neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

The ultimate "just being there."

Press On!
-Ken