Will-Power and 30-Second Pep-Talks

Some days, running is a joy. Thirty to forty minutes go by, and I barely know what has happened. Most days, however, I am accutely aware of the clock on the treadmill: how far I've gone, how much time is remaining, etc. During a typical workout, my mind is fairly blank after the first 10 minutes. Perhaps a single song will repeat, turning just a few lines over and over in my head. All of my conscious thoughts converge into one: all I can see is the clock. And I tell myself, in five- or ten-minute increments, how much longer I'm going to make myself go, knowing all the while that I am really lying: I will always push myself farther than I allow my mind to know.

Today, however, was not of the joyful sort, or even just the typical. Instead, my jog became a battle of the will: I knew I wanted to run because my body was craving a "runner's high," which I hadn't had all week; yet my workday had been stressful and I was in a terrible mood, and the last thing I wanted was to push myself. Chocolate, yes. Running, no. Yet there was nothing for it; it needed to be done.

And every 30 seconds was its own journey. Whatever desire to run I possessed at the beginning was gone after 2:30. At each half-minute mark, I would tell myself that I could do it; I could keep going for another 30 seconds; it wasn't much, but there was a little longer that I knew I could go, and by golly, I was going to do it. My body was finished at 36:30. Pain and shortness of breath ensued, augmenting the mental argument: I must stop! No, I must keep going! In a 40-minute jog, that breaks down to 79 mini-pep-talks. It was pure, stubborn will-power that pushed me to the end--nothing else.

Sometimes I wonder if this is how we are meant to approach life. (Not in pushing so hard that it makes us crazy, but in forcing our bodies to submit to our will--and our will to submit to God's higher will.) I know what I must do; I don't want to do it; it is a constant battle of the wills. My body, my strength, will not be able to go the distance on its own. It will need help, motivation, nourishment. Yet beyond this, beyond any physical capability I may or may not have, the real battle is one that occurs in the mind. Will I give up? Will I keep pressing through? Will I relinquish myself to the will of the One who actually knows where I should be going and how I will make it there?

If my will is strong enough, in itself, to push me beyond what my mind thinks it can do (and certainly beyond what my body wants to do), imagine what must happen when I actually relinquish control to God altogether.

But even in the midst of this, the dreadful, sweaty, out-of-breath perseverance of the push can really make you want to rethink the entire thing.