The ‘Heavenly Training Plan’
Psalm 18:25-29 (NIV)
‘To the faithful you show yourself faithful, to the blameless you show yourself blameless, to the pure you show yourself pure, but to the devious you show yourself shrewd. You save the humble but bring low those whose eyes are haughty. You, Lord, keep my lamp burning; my God turns my darkness into light. With your help I can advance against a troop; with my God I can scale a wall.’
Along with what feels like half of the UK, I got massively back into running during the first national lockdown and forced myself to endure a Couch-to-5k plan and then eventually a 12-week beginners’ half marathon training plan. To my surprise, what started as a casual commitment to exercise and an excuse to get me out of the house and away from Netflix, became one of my favourite hobbies and now I’ve become one of those slightly annoying running people that obsess over reflective headgear and go running on Christmas day.
There are still days, or more realistically whole weeks, where following my running training program feels like it’s impossible to maintain, even though I know how good it makes me feel and how beneficial it is to my physical and mental health. In a similar way, there are days, weeks and seasons when committing to the spiritual practices and ways of life that strengthen our relationship with God seem impossible. This is especially true when so much of our daily lives seems mundane, uncertain or overwhelming at the moment. However, these verses in Psalm 18 may serve as the nudge some of us need to pick up our Bibles, dust off our prayer journals and fire up our worship playlists again.
David is explaining that by pursuing blamelessness, faithfulness and humility through daily spiritual disciplines, we will benefit all the more from our personal relationship with God. Thankfully, we don’t have to rely fully on our own human strength to get back into the swing of the ‘heavenly training plan’ of life because God is the ultimate training partner and will sustain us and give us the energy and push we need to keep pursuing Him.
Prayer – Father God, I know that you delight in seeing us become more and more like Jesus, but sometimes I find it really hard to stay on track. Please help me to re-commit to daily intimacy with you. Keep my lamp burning. In Jesus’ name.