All Things

And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.     Romans 8:28 ESV

I went for a run this morning.  It wasn’t a long run.  It wasn’t a fast run.  But it was so much better than yesterday when I did nothing.  Including a trip to the grocery store, where I parked a ways out in the parking lot and did my usual backtracking in the store to go get the things I forgot on the first pass, I barely tracked 2,000 steps for the day.  Which was more than double the previous day!

My mind has been racing on a million different topics lately, my thoughts spiraling into worry and anxiety regularly. 

I’m far behind on getting my new book to publishing, but it seems that the more I push myself to finish, the less I accomplish.  Which just makes me more frustrated.  And as I write these days, I’m acutely aware of all of the places where my grammar is incorrect – like that fragment I just wrote as though it was a sentence, and the fact that I started this sentence with the word “and.”  But I digress!

My head feels like it’s constantly spinning – sometimes literally.  I blame it on too much caffeine, or too little caffeine, or wearing my glasses for too long, or not wearing my glasses enough.  In fact, I’m quite certain that it is really just anxiety. 

The Lord and I had a little chat about that yesterday as I was driving down the road.  (In retrospect, perhaps I shouldn’t have been driving down the road…  Or, maybe that was exactly what I needed to do.  I don’t know.)  But as I poured out my concerns to the Lord, He reminded me that He’s actually got everything under control.  Some part of me hadn’t actually forgotten that, though the louder voice in my head is overly anxious about the details.

In our conversation, my God reminded me that I should go for a run.  At least, I should get a proper workout of some variety.  It’s not that my workout schedule (or lack of workouts) is or should be my primary concern.  This is not my greatest spiritual need, or not exactly.

Our amazing Creator designed us with great care and incredible detail.  He put us together with systems that interact to provide us with life and health - physically, mentally, and spiritually.  As Christians, we often focus solely on the spiritual, while neglecting our mental and physical health.  For me specifically, and I think probably for everyone to some degree, physical activity is vital to my mental well-being.  And when things are off in my head, it skews my perspective on everything.

So before I started writing today, I went for a run.  Tomorrow, I think I may actually workout before I even finish all of my Bible reading.  I’ve not allowed myself to do anything other than make a cup of coffee before sitting down for my quiet time in the morning.  It has felt “out of order” to do otherwise.  But I don’t think that’s really the case, as I think on the matter now.

We like to remind ourselves that “…all things work together for GOOD…” while forgetting that “…ALL THINGS WORK TOGETHER for good…”  It’s a subtle distinction, but important.

So today’s thought, though not particularly deep, could be revolutionary.

Take care of yourself today.  ALL of yourself.

…Just a thought…