You know those things that you’ve done before, but you didn’t do it well enough for other people’s standards. That was my first fitness hike. We had 30 minutes to complete it. We started and finished at a pavilion. We walked/ran over gravel and asphalt, up hills, down hills, on relatively flat ground. Imagine the first part of the hike being uphill. You start on gravel that people slip on a lot. You quickly come to the asphalt part of the road and continue up the hill.
You come around the corner and finally get to the top of the hill. You’re already tired and wondering how/if you can do it. You have a decent length level stretch. You alternate between walking and running trying to give yourself a marker to reach before you stop running then walk for a minute before running again. You see the end of the road and the mailbox you have to reach. There is someone there to give you a high five for getting that far.
You have to turn around and go back until you get to a break off in the path. You end up on a gravel trail with a big hill. It isn’t so bad going down, but you fall on the way. You have to get back up with a 40 something pound pack on your back. You finally reach the end of the hill and get another high-five just to find out you’re only halfway there. You start the trek back up the hill. You have to keep pausing to take a break, and your breathing is heavy. When you finally get to the top of the hill, you find out you only have 6 more minutes to get back to the mailbox, turn around, and get back to the pavilion. Somewhere along the way someone joins you to encourage and push you. When you finally get close enough to the pavilion, you run the last little bit.
You get a hug when you complete it but find out it took you 30 minutes. They don’t tell you what that means right away, and you’re anxious to find out if you’ll have to do the hike again. After several hours of other sessions and such, you finally ask about it. You’re called along with 4 other people to talk with your squad mentor, and you’re all told you have to redo the hike. That was me.
That hike was on a Monday, and we weren’t going to be able to redo the hike until Sunday. We had to pass the fitness hike in order to go on the trip. Talk about anxiety! We had to wait 6 days to retry something that could keep us from being able to leave on the World Race this month. We talked about it a decent amount. It lead to (or increased) insecurities. We were anxious, and it detracted from other things we would have liked to focus on more.
But I learned something through all of that. God doesn’t time us. We go at different paces, and we stumble. However, God doesn’t use that to give us a pass or fail. God is with you whatever pace you’re going as long as you’ve accepted Him into your heart. God never left my side during that walk. You might not always feel like God is with you, but that doesn’t change the fact that He is. We live in a culture that sees a lot of things as failures. But really, that’s a terrible way to look at things. If we mess up, it’s okay. God forgives us. Jesus certainly didn’t die on the cross and rise from the dead for nothing. God is right there for us. Don’t worry about getting to a certain point in a certain amount of time. God is patient. It’s not a competition. Rest in God instead of always racing forward. (Look at Luke 10:38-42)
Watch for my next blog to hear about my second round of the fitness hike.
