“Where there is no vision, the people perish…”- Proverbs 29:18
I spent a lot of time running this past spring and summer. At this current time I have run 34:04:16 hours, which equates to one day and twelve hours of running. I have run 235.2 miles around an average 9 minute mile pace. If you rarely run, that is a lot of mileage. If you are an avid runner, it may only scratch the surface of your mileage. Either way, it equates to a bunch of busy mornings, and tired and achy days for me.
The reason I bring this up is because I noticed something interesting in my own running. I noticed that for weeks, even months, that I had little progress in my running times. I made very little improvement in my overall ability to run. It’s not because I wasn’t running regularly, because I was. It’s not because I wasn’t putting in the miles, because I was. It seemed as though I was doing everything right, but nothing was happening. What I learned through all of this is that the best intentions don’t automatically equate to the best results. I learned that there was a key element to my growth in running that was missing and that element was vision.
Let me explain this a bit further. What it boiled down to in my life was that I was running just to run. I had no real purpose or goal for my running. Sure I wanted to be in better health, but I could achieve that without lower run times, and I did. I wanted to run to give me more stability in my day, and I did. All of this was good and well, but it wasn’t improving my run times. What I really needed was a target goal that would help me push myself to a new level. The past few weeks I have been training for a 5k race in October, and an 11k race in November, with a possible half marathon in December. This has made me refocus my entire routine. I have had to revamp my run schedule, my sleep schedule, and my nutritional intake. The results speak for themselves. My run times have improved and my endurance has been brought to a whole new level. My average run time has increased by almost a minute per mile in the last month or so. All of this improvement because I made one adjustment, I brought in a vision of where I wanted to be and when I wanted to be there.
This happens in our lives as well. We can wake up one day and realize that we are no further along today than we were yesterday. Some days we can even say we are behind where we were yesterday. If this has happened to you let me encourage you to put some focus in your life. Create a vision in your life that, by achieving it, you automatically bring yourself to a new level. It says in Jeremiah 29:11 that God has a purpose for your life. God has a reason for you to be breathing air and walking this earth. I can tell you that that purpose is not so you can just sit around living a mediocre life. It is so you can make a difference in the world around you. It is so you can have an impact that reaches far beyond you and your lifetime. So much of where our world is today is because of people who had vision. They may be long gone, but what they accomplished with vision is still with us today.
In conclusion, my advice to you is to find out what your purpose is and set a goal for your life. Create a vision to get you to the next level of your life. Push yourself beyond what you think you are capable of. Don’t be afraid of failure, it only lasts for a season. Look to where you want to be and make decisions to move in that direction today.
Has this happened to you in your life? Have you felt like you are just living to live with little or no purpose to your life?
1 thought on “Effort + ? = Growth”
Looks like God is speaking some pretty similar things to us. We’ve called it “hitting the ceiling” and it’s time to bust through. Just read your previous blog again also. We want to see God type results, and realized we came up against man’s opinions as a wall. Until you aren’t satisfied with anything less than God’s best, you’ll settle for less.