This season of the year is a special one for me. Today is Ash Wednesday, the first day of Lent, that special stretch of 40 days when we give things up and seek God in preparation for Easter. The shadow of the cross and the euphoria of the Resurrection loom over us. But as a distance runner, spring is also the heart of racing season – those magical months of competition before the Texas heat arrives in force and makes running miserable. This is the time of year when I would race every weekend if I could. And if you are reading this and you are a non-runner: yes, I admit, I am indeed one of those dumb people who thinks that waking up while it is still dark to go run obscene amounts of sweaty, hilly miles until I’m sagging with exhaustion is “fun.” I am not even going to try justifying my insanity in this area. When it comes to being a runner, you’re either the right kind of crazy or you’re not, so I won’t try to convert anyone. But I will say that running could be likened to the journey of Lent in an important way.
I am entering this racing season hoping to get faster. I’ll do the longest trail race I’ve ever done, and I hope to set a personal best in a half marathon. But here’s what I’ve learned after a few years in the sport: fast isn’t something you go out and do one day. Fast is something you are. Or, maybe something you become. This is part of why I love distance running so much … it is arguably the purest athletic activity in the world. When you run, there’s no teamates to bail you out or let you down, no ref who can make a good or bad call, no awkward bounce of the ball, not even – as in cycling – the chance of doing much drafting off other athletes. Running is the human body pitted against the race course, no excuses. True, there are a few things that can mess you up at the last minute – a sudden heat wave or a desperate search for a toilet at mile 4. But for the most part, when you line up at the start and you either have taught your body to accompish the task or you haven’t. Most of the stuff that needs to happen for me to accomplish my running goals is tangible, even measurable. My legs need to get stronger. The microscopic tears in my plantar fascias need to heal. My VO2 max needs to go up. My resting heart rate needs to go down. My muscles need to grow a higher density of mitochondria. I need, in other words, to be transformed, because willpower isn’t going to make a slow body go fast on race day.
The journey of Lent is also about being transformed. We sometimes imagine that what we need is to try harder in our spiritual lives, when what we really need is for God to break us down and rebuild us from the inside out. Holy isn’t something you go out and do one day; holy is something you are. Or, maybe something you can become. When I think of what it means for me to be holier, it comes down to things I need to be, things that are less tangible but no less real than the changes that make me fast. I need to let the truth of the gospel sink deep into me, until it changes the way I see everything. I need to be a person of love, not just a person who acts loving, but someone for whom love of God and neighbor is an inseparable part of who I am. I need to put others first and Christ before all, not out of grudging duty but because I have genuinely learned to stop caring so dang much about my own wants. I need to be someone who burns for the kingdom of God like it really is the most important thing ever. And I don’t need to act like these things are true of me; I need these things to be true of me. That’s where the transformation comes in. I can’t make the soul I have right now live like Jesus any more than I can make the muscles and tendons and lungs I have right now run a 3:30 marathon. So, I need God to give me a new soul. I need God to come in and break down the places where I am obsessed with crap that doesn’t matter, and to fill me with more of him. I am hoping that Lent will be that kind of season – a season where the things that need to be strengthened get strengthened, the things that need to be healed get healed, and the things that need to change get changed. I am hoping that God does this work, so that when I wake up on Easter morning, it won’t be as quite the same human being who woke up on Ash Wednesday. May God use this season as a time to transform us all.
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