"Can you trust me when you don't see change?" God asked me this question while running one particular day. I was in a new city and God had me run a new route where the terrain was flatter than I was used to, with little to no change. During this run, I'd notice that I was getting tired faster and my endurance to complete the run seemed almost impossible. I thought to myself, "Is it the altitude? Am I not used to running at this elevated level?" While living in Georgia, my runs typically consisted of a pattern of continuous hills and valleys, which built up my strength muscles, however running in this mostly flat environment seemed to be a challenge for me and I couldn't understand why. I thought that running on hills and in valleys would prepare me for any run situation or environment that I would face. Unfortunately, what I didn't realize was that although I had the strength for the run, I lacked the endurance to complete the run.
Oddly, it didn't occur to me that muscle strength and muscle endurance aren't one and the same and that one can't compensate for the other. HealthLink BC defines the two as, "Muscle strength is the amount of force you can put out or the amount of weight you can lift, while muscle endurance is how many times you can move that weight without getting exhausted." So ultimately, I was training myself to be a runner that lacked endurance. As a person, I knew I was strong and I thought that I was on my way to becoming a strong runner as well. Life has always given me more than my fair share of weight and I was used to carrying it all myself, but what good was all that strength if I didn’t have the endurance to go the distance? Strangely for me, I had always found it easier to run in an environment with constant ups and downs adapting to constant changes in my paths because that is what I had become accustomed to. These paths were all that I knew and the possibility of building endurance while running on what seemed like a simple terrain never occurred to me. Nevertheless, God was preparing me for a new way to run and I would need them both if I was to get through this next season in my life.
We go through a cycle of peaks and valleys, highs and lows, and constant times of uncertainties in life that can be devastating and frustrating. Even still, in every cycle, God gives us the strength to conquer those hills in our lives so that when we go into our valleys, we have the momentum to come out stronger. However, what happens in the flat places where there is no change in the terrain? When you are on a constant journey of bad with no end in sight? Is God still working? Is He still strengthening you after constant spans of losses? Strings of deaths one after another. Loss of your job…loss of money…loss of your house…your car, and on and on. What do you gain in a steady place of bad? The bible says in Romans 5:3-4, "...but we also glory in our suffering because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance produces character; and character produces hope." James 1:2-3 tells us to, “Consider it all joy when you encounter various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance.” When facing difficulties in life, we can either give up or grow up. We get so fixed on getting through the journey that we don't realize what the journey is trying to teach us. God builds our endurance in the seasons where we don’t see change. He increases our faith, and makes us steadfast by strengthening our muscles so that we can not only make it to the end but thrive in our new beginning!
While our strength will only get us so far, we can always count on our endurance to take us to the end. So when you come across the "flat" unchanging terrain, don’t be intimidated by the temporary pain you might endure, and even if you get tired, don’t stop. Stay the course, don’t slow down, and keep your pace. Remember whenever there seems to be no change or no rest, that is when God is providing you with the momentum that you need to keep moving forward. It is in these moments, He becomes your source; the companion you need when you have lost everyone, and your provider when you have lost it all. He becomes your EVERYTHING and the ONLY thing that can give you the strength that you need when there is no momentum from the downhill to rest in. It is on the steady terrain that you become mindful of every physical element of your body and you are intentional about every move you make because you need all the endurance that God is giving you to make it through and come out stronger.
Endurance doesn’t just change the end result you are working toward, it changes your character which ultimately changes who you are to become in the best kind of way! Although running uphill is great to builds muscle and provides you with momentum as you run down, it is only on the flat terrain where your endurance is tested.
