I gave a talk last week in which I made several analogies between running and the gospel. I had another one happen today. I went for a 16 mile run, and a friend of mine said that there was a good loop from Oakwood that took you along the river and several trails. I headed out, sort of knowing where I was going, but thinking I could use my phone to check maps and figure it out when if i got lost. Well, apparently listening to a podcast drained my battery, leaving me with an almost dead phone and a vague idea of where i was at about 10 miles. At that point, I had a choice: run the ten miles back where I came, or trust myself to follow the vague directions I remembered and get home in less milage. I chose the latter, and while it was longer than 16, it wasn't 20. Just like my run today, if we keep pressing forward in life, trusting in the direction the Lord has provided for us, things will be okay. But that takes courage from us, which can be scary. it carries some risk when you're running, because the run might end up longer (and therefore more painful) than you might have thought. But in the gospel, we can always trust that the Lord will guide us correctly, provided we are brave enough to trust in Him.
One of the main reasons I go to Germany every couple of years is to restock my supply of Birkenstocks. I started buying them when I lived there, and I basically can't live without them now. It just about kills me when a pair runs its course and needs to be thrown away. I think in my lifetime, I've thrown away only three pairs. One that never was quite right (the straps were plastic and would cut into my skin after a long day), one pair that I wore gardening one too many times (the brown dirt stains wouldn't come out of the white leather), and the pair that I was wearing when I broke my ankle (they were an unfortunate casualty of broken ankle PTSD because those purple and blue paisleys go down as one of my favorite pairs of all time). I only threw out the garden ones a couple of days before I left for Germany, because I knew I would be getting a new pair. The only store where I have ever bought my Birkenstocks is Hoffmann's in Speicher. (Well okay, t...
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