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Becoming Proud & Forgetting the Lord

“Do not become proud at that time and forget the LORD your God, who rescued you from slavery in the land of Egypt.”
Deuteronomy 8:14

To be honest, I debated on whether or not I wanted to publish this blog post at all. It is my heart’s desire that my jogging journey be an encouragement to others in their walk with the Lord, but I know that no one can take me seriously if I only publish the “good” parts and leave out the times when I fail spiritually. So while this post may not be encouraging, I can only pray that the Lord will help me on the path to humbleness.

After a long weekend of walking and jogging with my dad, I skipped my maintenance run on Tuesday because I was worn out. I intended to run on Wednesday morning, but the rain and storms had arrived and kept me inside. But, by Wednesday evening, the rain had temporarily cleared and I was ready to lace up my running shoes.

According to my running plan, I’m only supposed to run two 30-minute maintenance runs during the week and save my long runs for the weekend. If I really push myself, I can almost finish a 5k in 30 minutes, but the weekday runs aren’t really for “pushing.” They are more to keep me in shape. But, I decided that since I’d missed my run on Tuesday, I would run an hour and see just how far I could make it.

I have to say, I’ve tried to be very patient throughout this process so that I don’t injure myself. I finished a full 5k training plan before running a 5k. I bought the right shoes. I researched proper form online so that I would know the right way to run. Most of all, I sought to keep God as my center focus for running, not my actual performance as a runner. But recently, my focus has shifted, and instead of focusing on the Lord, I began to focus on me.

While running yesterday evening, I found myself too distracted to pray. That should have been my first warning sign. That hour of running should have been a wonderful conversation with God, but instead, all I could think about was how far I could go. I don’t think I even spoke to the Lord a total of five minutes.

After an hour, I had successfully finished five miles, and I was feeling pretty proud of myself. I’ve never run further than a 5k and I couldn’t believe I’d actually made it that far. I didn’t care that I wasn’t even supposed to run five miles for another two weeks. I was just excited that I’d made it!

Not long after getting home, I noticed a deep pain in my hip and upper thigh. As time went on, the pain got worse and I realized I’d actually hurt myself. I iced my leg and took some Tylenol. At first, I was extremely disappointed that I’d pushed myself too hard and gotten hurt, because now I couldn’t run for a few days. But then I realized something worse. This entire journey wasn’t supposed to be about how “good” I could run. It was supposed to be about drawing closer to the Lord, and at that, I had failed miserably. Instead of being proud of the work the Lord had been doing in me, I was ignoring Him completely and feeling proud of myself.


Deuteronomy 8:14 speaks so well of the situation I’ve gotten myself into. I have become proud and I have forgotten the Lord. If it hadn’t been for God, I would have never started jogging in the first place. It may have taken an injury to open my eyes, but I’m thankful that the Lord didn’t allow me to become hurt even worse. He has given me the opportunity to turn my attention back to Him, where it’s supposed to be.  

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