Month: July 2006

Be ye holy…

First Peter 1:6 says, “Because it is written, Be ye holy; for I am holy.” Where was it written? In the Bible. Leviticus 11:44 and 45 are two verses where it is said.

But what does it mean to be holy? A few years ago there was a big emphasis on holiness in churches in the US. There were all kinds of conferences and discussions about holiness. I presume that most of it was very good and helpful. My friend John VanGelderen has a conference each year called The Holiness Conference. Though I have never been to one of his conferences, I know Bro. VanGelderen and I would probably very much agree with what he has to say each year.

But just recently I was sitting in church and the pastor was speaking on being holy. God gave me a simple thought on what holiness is. Holiness is living absolutely as right before the Lord as you know how in contrast to simply obeying rules.

When you need a rule, or a Bible verse, to tell you each thing that you should and should not do, you are not living holy. Obviously rules and specific verses from the Bible give us direction and are the only way we can begin to understand holiness. But if you have to filter every action that you take through a set of rules, then you are trying to live at the edge of sinfulness, not in the fullness of holiness.

From Matthew 18 we see Peter talking to the Lord. “Then came Peter to him, and said, Lord, how oft shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? till seven times? Jesus saith unto him, I say not unto thee, Until seven times: but, Until seventy times seven.” The point being, “Don’t worry about the exact number Peter. Just forgive because it is right to do.” Peter was trying to quantify the rule of forgiveness so that he could make sure he did what was necessary, but not any more than that.

Holiness is living absolutely as right before the Lord as you know how. It is not simply obeying a list of rules. Isn’t that where the Pharisees and Jesus often clashed? Don’t be a 21st century pharisee. Live holy.

Best laid plans…

I set out to do a 5 Km. run this morning. It was to be a tempo run. Tempo means that it is to be run at my race pace, or, as fast as possible. I was hoping to do 5:30 per Km. That would shave 30 seconds off the time that it took me to do that run before. That means, only 6 second per Km. faster. Not too hard I thought.

Usually I know the night before how I am feeling and how these runs are going to go. Last night, I was tired, but felt good. I had a really tough work out yesterday morning, but I did not think it would affect me that much. This morning I still felt tired, but woke up at my normal time, though I had planned to sleep in if I could.

First Km. went a bit slow. 5:41. Second one I did well at 5:25. Third Km. was back to the first Km. pace with a 5:42. Then it all fell apart. I just did not have the gas to go any more. I was beat, though I did not feel I was running that fast. I started walking/jogging shortly after the 3 Km. mark. Then by the time I hit 4 Km. it was all walking. The fourth Km. was at a 6:55 pace. I cut the agony short and only did 4.45 Km. for a total time of 28:07. Or a 6:19 Km. pace and 10:10 mile pace. That is nothing to be ashamed of. When I started this journey a 10:10 mile pace was a pipe dream. Here I walked 1.5 Km. of the run and still came out with that pace.

Ah, there is always another day.

I won a book!

I have been listening to Matt at Dump Runners Club for a few months. It is a running podcast. Matt has some great times and is inspiring to hear him tell about his running. I know he works hard to get his time down, but I am amazed that he can run as fast as he does. We are the same age, so I know that I can at least get down a little. On the other hand, Matt has been a runner for many years and I have never liked the sport until recently.

He offered to give away the book Ultramarathon Man by Dean Karnazes. This was to be given away as part of a drawing. One only needed to send an email to Matt. Since I missed out on winning Coast to Coast a couple of months ago, I thought about writing Matt every day just to bug him into letting me win. But I did not.

I was very thrilled to hear that I was the winner of the book when he announced it on the podcast today. He said that only 2 people wrote him. I don’t care if I was the only one, or that there were 5,000, it is a book I was interested in reading and am glad to have a copy coming my way.

Thanks Matt!

One Hour Run

Today I set out to run 1 hour. Recently I have been running for a certain period of time, not necessarily for a set distance. After I got started today, I decided that I would like to run 1 hour 20 minutes instead. That ended up being 6.73 miles, which was run at a pace of 11:55 (min:secs) per mile.

I only almost got hit one time. I started across an intersection thinking that I was about to get the light in my favor. Instead the cars to my left started moving as I was just entering the intersection. Needless to say, I got a very quick spint intermixed with my run this morning. I really must learn the traffic patterns for these intersections that I run through.
As I ran near one of my friends house I saw that he was standing out front. Though I would not have bothered him otherwise on a Saturday morning, I stopped by to grab a glass of water since he was already out. Then I finished the final 15 minutes of my run.

I got a mention on the Burning20 podcast that I was listening to this morning. I told Adam in an email that I enjoyed the show but did not like the music. He used my words for the world to hear. Which were more like “I love the show, but HATE the music.” I thought it was funny that he actually said that on the air.