RUN UGLY

My running coach closed his weekly encouraging email with a challenge to “Run Ugly.” And being the girly girl that I am, I immediately took offense to that statement. I don’t want to run ugly! I don’t want to do anything ugly, if I can help it. I want to run pretty. I like pretty food, pretty shoes, pretty coffee (which is why I pay $6 a drink for it), pretty music, and things that smell pretty. I am a pretty kind of girl. So I must be honest, when I started running two months ago, I wanted that to be pretty too. I bought the adorably coordinating running outfit and was the cutest thing at the trails. But as soon as I actually began to run, I learned that running pretty isn’t really running. There is nothing pretty about a runner who has just finished a ten mile run. They are soaked in sweat, red-faced from exertion, with salt deposits on their face and arms, and they smell like BodyGlide. Running just isn’t pretty. It’s inspiring, challenging, and exhausting, but not pretty.

Neither is following Christ. Oh, some churches are trying to market Christianity as this warm and fuzzy, make you feel good all over, happily ever after transformation. But that is pure baloney. Following Christ is hard. It means saying no to old habits and resisting the temptation to sin. It means clinging on to Christ just to make it through the day. It means spending time on your knees getting to know your Savior. It means doing His will for your life, not your own. It means living to glorify Jesus Christ and not yourself. It means spiritual warfare and being misunderstood by anyone who doesn’t love Jesus just as much as you do. There is nothing pretty about following Jesus Christ. It is amazing, it has eternal rewards, it means never having to be alone ever again, it means your life has a great purpose, but it is not pretty.

Each one of us has a choice: pretty or ugly?
To be a runner, I have to leave pretty at the house before hitting the trails. But the flip side is that ugly or not, I get to run! I get to feel the wind in my hair, the sunshine on my face, feel my body rise to the challenge of the race. It’s glorious.

To be a follower of Christ, I have to give up warm fuzzies and die to myself. But the flip side is that as difficult as it is to follow Christ – I get to be a part of a purpose far greater than myself. I get to be forgiven. I get to share that amazing forgiveness with others. I get to spend eternity in a perfect heaven with my God. I get to walk with Jesus every day, following in his footsteps. I get to be a reflection of Jesus to the world, and that is way better than simply being pretty.

The Effects of Running Ugly:
(Pretty gets you compliments, so what does ugly get you?)

1. Icky-Sweat-Haters. People who don’t run just don’t get the sweat thing. They think it is icky and smelly and gross. As runners, we get past the sweat factor real quick, it is just evidence of our hard work. Non-runners don’t want to hang around someone who just finished a half-marathon because they don’t want the sweat to rub off. This happens all the time in the Christian life. Your continual push toward godliness makes them run away so you won’t get God all over them. “If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you.” John 15:19

2. The You-Crazy-Runner Crowd. The people who stand on the sidelines and shake their heads as you run by. They don’t understand how you can enjoy such intense exercise. They think you are crazy for you love of running. They just don’t get it. Neither do non-believers. They won’t get why you give up sleep to read your Bible before work, or why you are kind to people who gossip about you, or why you put others first. They just won’t get it, and they never will unless they too start racing after Jesus Christ. “Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might understand the things freely given us by God”.1 Corinthians 2:12

3. The You-Make-Me-Feel-Fat-ers. People who don’t run, but wish they did. They know they need to get off the couch and hit the track to burn off last night’s Chinese take-out, but they just don’t want to. It’s too much work, it has been too long since they last exercised, they are too old and fat to change. We’ve all heard the excuses. Funny thing is, those are the same kind of excuses that I hear from people who don’t want to go to church. The discipline and athleticism of a runner makes couch-potatoes feel guilty. “And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil. For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed. But whoever does what is true comes to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that his works have been carried out in God.” John 3:19-21

4. Those who are inspired to run. Some people will see you running, see the joy it brings you, the benefit to your health and they will join you in the race. Most people will think you are insane, but a few will get it. And those are the ones that will run beside you as you race pass all the people who think you are crazy. Run to inspire. “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.” John 3:16-17

As modern girls, it is easy to get completely preoccupied with all things pretty.

Don’t. Don’t worry about pretty, just run.

Run!

“Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one receives the prize? So run that you may obtain it. Every athlete exercises self-control in all things. They do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable. So I do not run aimlessly; I do not box as one beating the air.” 1 Corinthians 9:24-26

“Holding fast to the word of life, so that in the day of Christ I may be proud that I did not run in vain or labor in vain.” Philippians 2:16

“Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.” Hebrews 12:1-2