In my twenties, I treated working out like a punishment. A number to hit. Calories to burn. Something my body owed me for what I ate the day before. Or a prepayment for what I wanted to drink the night after.
I didn’t know yet that God was going to use that same complicated relationship with exercise, and that same discipline, for something entirely different a decade later as I taught myself to run. I still have the journal entry:
“October 2, 2021 - Started my ‘run week’ with a walk outside. When I returned home God said, ‘Document this journey…there are things I want to release to you but I want it documented.’ I started thanking and praising God…as I searched for a (this) journal app.”
I vividly remember thanking Him, praising Him, scrambling to find an app to write it all down before I lost the words.
I didn’t go looking for that. It found me outside.
Somewhere along the way, the walking turned into running. I started going out daily, no real plan, just lacing up and heading out the door. Then one morning, I went outside for a run without my phone. No podcast, no playlist, no plan. Just my feet on the pavement and the sun and the air doing that life-giving thing they do.
And somewhere around the quarter-mile, it would always get quiet enough to hear the Holy Spirit speak. Not dramatic. Nearly audible. Clear.
Something about releasing myself from the captivity of a desk, and from the predetermined answers I’d been holding, made room for something I couldn’t come up with. It gave me space to hear.
In 1 Kings 19, Elijah is running for his life and ends up hiding in a cave, worn out and wanting to quit. God finds him there and tells Elijah to come out. Go stand on the mountain…God will pass by, He says. Suddenly, a hurricane wind ripped through the mountains and shattered the rocks, but God wasn’t to be found in the wind; then an earthquake, but God wasn’t in the earthquake; and after the earthquake, fire, but God wasn’t in the fire; but after the fire, came a gentle and quiet whisper.
When Elijah heard the quiet voice, he went to the mouth of the cave and stood there. It was then, outside the cave, that Elijah encountered God - and His direction - as a whisper.
Maybe your couch is your cave.
Not because rest is wrong. Rest is holy too. Elijah needed rest before he could hear anything at all. But sometimes we aren’t resting. We’re hiding. We’re numbing. We’re doom-scrolling until the noise in our head disappears in the noise on the screen, and calling that relaxation.
I think that’s why running worked on me the way it did. Not the pace, not the mileage, but the movement. The rhythm. It’s as if my body has to be present somewhere in order for my mind to finally stop and listen.
Moving your body outdoors is a chance to be somewhere quiet enough, long enough, to hear something true. A new story. A reframe. A true-er truth than the one you’ve been holding. A direction beyond what you’ve been seeing.
You don’t need a five mile run. You don’t need a fitness goal or a before and after photo. You need air. You need sun. You need ten minutes where your phone stays inside and your feet go outside.
God’s not shouting over your noise. He’s waiting for you in the quiet you keep avoiding.
I wonder…
When was the last time you went outside simply to observe, simply to wonder at God’s creation? What did you notice?
What’s the “noise” you’ve been using to avoid the quiet?
If you took a walk or run with nothing in your ears this week, what would you ask God about?
I love you.
Coi Marie
Affirmations:
My body was made to carry me somewhere I can finally hear.
I stop using noise to hide from the quiet. The quiet is where He is. The quiet is where I find out who I am.
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