Thursday, February 26, 2015

Rules and Grace.

I am a rule follower most of the time. Yes, I have had my moments of rebellion, some small, some fairly big, at least to me. The older I get the more I enjoy following rules, except the speed limit, I admit I have a heavy foot. Part of this need to follow rules is the need to follow my training schedules. I don't have a coach and this is a schedule someone sent me. I looked at a lot of schedules but this is the one I chose. It is a lot but, I am doing an ironman so I probably need to train a lot.

My struggle with my plan and being a rule follower is that things come up that cause me to miss a training day and then I beat myself up for missing the training. Things like being called into work, sick kids, two weeks of this by the way, a death, family in town, the holidays, me being sick. These things are out of my control. I am not missing because I don't feel like doing the workout I am missing because of life.

People have told me that if I do 70% of my training I should be okay and that it is better to be undertrained than overtrained. I hope they are correct. So knowing this I wish I could tell my brain that it is okay to miss. I wish I could give myself the grace to miss and be ok with myself. Instead I have a tendency to beat myself up mentally.

It made me wonder about grace and my faith in Jesus. I have people tell me they don't want part of Christianity because of all the rules that they must follow. That they are tired of feeling guilty because they, in their mind, have not lived up to these "rules". I know that guilt, I feel it when I miss a workout.The great thing about Christianity though is it isn't about a set of rules to follow it is about a relationship with our Savior that is personal. The Bible says, "For by grace you have been saved through faith; and not that of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works so that no one may boast." Ephesians 2:8-9. I don't have to do anything but have faith in Jesus Christ to be saved. Wow. God desires that relationship not because of anything I have done to deserve it., because there is nothing I can do to deserve eternal salvation.