An Undivided Heart

My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.

—Psalm 73:26

I knew my weight issue didn’t have anything to do with me being spiritual or worldly. If I was honest with myself, my issue was plain and simple—a lack of self-control. I could sugarcoat it and justify it all day long, but the truth was I didn’t have a weight problem; I had a spiritual problem. I depended on food for comfort more than I depended on God. And I was simply too lazy to make time to exercise.

Ouch. That truth hurt.

So, one day a couple of years ago, I got up first thing in the morning and went running. And you know what? I hated it. Exercise just made me want to cry.

It made me hot and sticky. It made my legs hurt and my lungs burn. Nothing about it was fun until after I finished. But the feeling of accomplishment I felt afterward was fantastic! So each day I would fight through the tears and excuses and make the effort to run.

At first I could only slowly jog from one mailbox to another—in a neighborhood where the houses are close together, thank you very much. Slowly, I started to see little evidences of progress. Every day I asked God to give me the strength to stick with it this time. I’d tried so many other times and failed. The more I made running about spiritual growth and discipline, the less I focused on the weight. Each lost pound was not a quest to get skinny but evidence of obedience to God.

One day, I went out for my run and a clear command from God rumbled in my heart: “Run until you can’t take another step. Do it not in your strength but in Mine. Every time you want to stop, pray—and don’t stop until I tell you to.”

I had a record up to that point of running three miles, which I thought was quite stellar. So maybe God wanted me to run just slightly past the three-mile marker and rejoice in relying on His strength to do so. But as I reached that point in my run, my heart betrayed my aching body and said, “Keep going.”

Each step thereafter, I had to pray and rely on God. The more I focused on running toward God, the less I thought about my desire to stop. And this verse from the Psalms came to life: “My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever” (73:26).

As I ran that day, I connected with God on a different level. I experienced what it meant to absolutely require God’s faith to see something through. How many times have I claimed to be a woman of faith but rarely lived a life requiring faith? That day, God didn’t have me stop until I ran 8.6 miles.

Hear me out here. It was my legs that took every step. It was my energy being used. It was my effort that took me from one mile to three to five to seven to 8.6. But it was God’s strength replacing my excuses step by step by step.

How many times have I claimed to be a woman of faith but rarely lived a life requiring faith?

For a mailbox-to-mailbox, crying-when-she-thought-of-exercising, allergic-to-physical-discipline kind of girl, it was a modern-day miracle. I broke through the “I can’t” barrier and expanded the horizons of my reality. Was it hard? Yes. Was it tempting to quit? Absolutely. Could I do this in my own strength? Never. But this really wasn’t about running. It was about realizing the power of God taking over my complete weakness.

I went back to my standard three-mile track the next time I ran. But slowly I increased my daily runs to four miles and am very happy with that distance. Running 8.6 miles on a daily basis isn’t realistic for me. But that one day, it was glorious. Especially because of what I discovered when I got home.

Since I’d been thinking of a verse from Psalms during my run, I grabbed my Bible as soon as I got home and opened it up to Psalm 86, in honor of my 8.6 miles.

Here is part of what I read: “Teach me your way, LORD, that I may rely on your faithfulness; give me an undivided heart, that I may fear your name. I will praise you, Lord my God, with all my heart; I will glorify your name forever” (Psalm 86:11–12).

An undivided heart. That’s what my whole journey in conquering my cravings was about. When it comes to my body, I can’t live with divided loyalties. I can either be loyal to honoring the Lord with my body or loyal to my cravings, desires, and many excuses for not exercising.

I don’t know where you might have divided loyalties or what struggle makes you think, I can’t. But are you open to God’s leading in how He wants to show His power in your life?

Dear Lord, I want to have a heart that is totally loyal to You. Please show me if there are things I turn to instead of You. Teach me to rely on Your strength and power in the areas where I am weak. In Jesus’ Name, Amen.