"Belief" is a funny thing.  There are so many quotes and so much wisdom that leaders and thinkers and philospohers have offered about what can happen if we believe.  Martin Luther King helped strech our national belief when he went dreaming, athletic coaches have cast vision that the fuel for a championship is the beleif that it can be done.  innovators and inventors saw what today lacked and believed tomorrow for something better.

My running journey this year has been a story of knocking down barriers.  I remember when the jump from 3 to 4 miles seemed unimaginably daunting.  I could feel my legs buckle at mile 3, demanding rest and my lungs eager to comply and i wondered, "how in the heck am I going to go 23 more miles?"  But those wiser counselled me to stick with the program, to fight through the tough spots and celebrate the easy runs.  Before last Saturday, the longest I had run this year was 9 miles and it was a difficult fight.  Though I was excited about being ahead of schedule i also still wondered about the remaining 17 miles.  Then a friend called and asked me to join her running club for a long run…10 miles. 

I skip ahead in the story to today.  In the ten days since that Saturday morning I have logged 42.5 miles!  The ten miler was so painless that I joined my new running buddies for 12 mile Thursday.  I have mixed in 4s, 5s, and 6.5s in the middle and WHAM…belief barriers are temprarily down.

Of course I immediately need to quell any sense of accomplishment and my Swedish heritage needs to be sure to point out other failings and though I want to fight it, I can't help but feel like I have some pretty big belief barriers up with God as well.  Do I beleive that He can heal the most devastating cancers and ailments, or restore the marriage shattered by an affair, or re-capture the heart of a 19 year old  who is leaving Him behind in pursuit of an alluring new story?  What are the 14 mile runs of your faith?  What are the things that you assume can happen, but likely won't happen?  What are you expecting God to do in you today and are you prepared to see Him do it?

After finishing my 12 miler last week, I had this awe in my mind.  It wasn't accomplishment or pride (well not much of it was that).  But truly, I had an awe that a new reality was oh, so close and I so easily could have missed it.  But in the 2 hour run from "I don't want" to "I just did" God gave me a picture of what my life with Him can look like.  Believe big!