I hadn't gone for a run in over two years. At one point in my life, running had been a regular part of who I was. I had even completed a full marathon. It wasn't something I forced myself to do, it was something I genuinely loved. Running gave me space to think, to pray, and to hear from God in a way that seemed different from any other part of my day.
Then everything in my life seemed to fall apart. Divorce will do that to you. Heartbreak. Stress. Grief. Exhaustion. One difficult season after another slowly drained the joy out of things that had once brought life to my soul.
The strange thing about sadness is that it doesn't just rob you of happiness. Given enough time, it begins to rob you of your identity. You start believing that the person you used to be is gone forever.
The truth is, I really wasn't that out of shape. My body wasn't what kept me from running.
My mind did.
Somewhere along the way I had convinced myself that running belonged to another chapter of my life. Those were the "good old days," and perhaps they weren't meant to come back. Every time the thought of going for a run crossed my mind, another thought was quick to answer it.
You'll never do that again. You've already checked that box once in your life.
But there was another voice I kept hearing.
Not an audible voice, but that familiar, gentle prompting from the Holy Spirit that wouldn't leave me alone.
"It's time."
God had been nudging me toward running again for quite a while. The more I ignored Him, the more persistent that quiet invitation became. I couldn't really explain why it mattered so much, except that every time I had faithfully exercised in the past, I found myself drawing closer to Him. There are conversations I have with God while I'm walking or running that don't seem to happen anywhere else.
Something about being outside, moving one step at a time, strips away the noise. My prayers become more honest. My thoughts become clearer. My heart becomes more attentive to His voice.
I don't pretend to understand why God meets me there, but I do know this: if something consistently draws me closer to Him, it probably doesn't belong in my past.
The problem was that my flesh wasn't nearly as enthusiastic as my spirit.
Have you ever noticed how hard it is to do the very things that you know are good for you? The things that nourish your soul are often the very things your flesh fights the hardest. There were a hundred excuses I could have made, and every one of them sounded reasonable.
But sometimes obedience begins long before the first step.
Sometimes it begins by simply lacing up your shoes.
So that day I stood staring at my sneakers far longer than I should have. Finally, I picked them up, tied the laces, found my headphones, and decided that if I wasn't brave enough to go alone, I knew someone who would be thrilled to join me.
Our Husky, Zeus.
Zeus has never lacked enthusiasm. Common sense, perhaps. Enthusiasm, never.
The moment he saw the leash, he exploded with excitement, bouncing around the house as though he had just won the lottery. I smiled, clipped the leash onto his collar, stopped worrying about how I looked, stepped onto the front porch, and took a deep breath.
It was a quiet Sunday afternoon. The usually busy highway near our house was almost empty.
Perfect.
What I had forgotten was that Zeus had never actually learned how to run with someone. During those difficult years, he had missed out on that training just as much as I had. Every time I started jogging, he darted toward the ditch, cut across in front of me, or nearly tangled himself around my legs. I couldn't go more than a few seconds without stopping to untangle the leash or keep from tripping over my overly enthusiastic running partner.
Before long, I found myself growing frustrated. This was nothing like the peaceful run I had imagined.
Then a thought crossed my mind that immediately changed my perspective. I was expecting Zeus to know how to do something he had never been taught. Wasn't I doing the exact same thing to myself?
I hadn't run in over two years. Why did I expect everything to feel natural again? Why did I expect myself to pick up exactly where I had left off?
Learning something again takes patience. Growing takes consistency. Beginning again requires grace. Maybe that was part of what God was trying to teach me all along.
So often, when He calls us into something new, or back to something we've neglected, we expect ourselves to be immediately successful. But God isn't asking us to have everything figured out. He's simply asking us to trust Him enough to take the next step.
Perhaps that's what faith looks like more often than we realize. Not arriving. Just showing up. Again and again.
Whether you turn to the right or to the left, your ears will hear a voice behind you, saying, 'This is the way; walk in it'. - Isaiah 30:21
Follow The Leader
After several frustrating attempts to settle into a rhythm, I decided to give it one more try. I waited for my running app to signal the next interval, took a deep breath, and eased into a slow jog. For a few brief seconds everything felt promising. Then, just as he had done all afternoon, Zeus lunged toward the ditch with all the enthusiasm of a Husky who had suddenly discovered something infinitely more exciting than staying on the road. In this case, it was a grasshopper.
Instinctively, I gave his leash a firm tug to bring him back beside me. Normally he would bounce right back as though nothing had happened, but this time he didn't move at all. He simply collapsed onto the pavement. At first I thought he was being stubborn. I called his name, gave the leash another gentle pull, and realized I was dragging the dead weight of very determined Husky. Zeus had apparently decided the run was over.
I looked down at him, wondering what had gotten into him. Then I glanced over my shoulder.
There, steadily making her way toward us, was a large Rottweiler.
My heart sank.
She was beautiful, but she was also muscular, powerful, and completely loose. Every alarming scenario raced through my mind at once. I instinctively stepped between her and Zeus, hoping my presence alone would somehow convince her to keep walking. Zeus, however, had reached an entirely different conclusion. Whatever courage he had shown while dragging me through ditches had suddenly vanished. He flattened himself against the road in complete submission, refusing to move so much as an inch.
Well, almost complete submission. For reasons known only to him, he decided that baring his teeth would somehow improve the situation.
To this day I have no idea what was going through his mind. It was the canine equivalent of challenging a heavyweight boxer to a fight after losing the ability to stand up. Had she wanted to, she could have made very short work of my overly confident Husky. Thankfully, she simply continued watching us with quiet curiosity while I repeatedly told Zeus that this was a very bad plan.
Just then, a pickup truck slowed beside us. The driver rolled down his window and asked, "Do you need some help?"
"Yes, please," I answered without hesitation.
"It looks like you're about to have a dog fight."
He climbed out of his truck, calmly encouraged the Rottweiler back across the road, waited until she had wandered a safe distance away, wished us luck, and drove on. I breathed a sigh of relief, convinced the excitement was finally over.
It wasn't.
We had barely resumed our walk when I heard soft footsteps behind us again. I turned to see the same Rottweiler quietly following us down the road. Zeus immediately returned to his previous strategy by laying flat on the pavement, and this time no amount of encouragement could persuade him to stand.
"Come on, buddy," I pleaded, trying unsuccessfully to coax him forward. "We have to go."
He wasn't interested.
With Zeus firmly planted on the road and the Rottweiler continuing her slow approach, I realized I had little choice but to see what she wanted. This time, however, I noticed something I hadn't seen before. Her ears were laid back, her tail was low, and there wasn't a hint of aggression in her posture. If anything, she looked every bit as uncertain about us as we were about her.
Very slowly I extended my hand.
She stepped forward with cautious curiosity, sniffed my fingers for a moment, and then gently rested her head against my hand as though we had known each other for years. I smiled and began rubbing behind her ears, and within seconds the intimidating dog I had been so worried about melted into an affectionate, oversized teddy bear. So much for the fierce Rottweiler. She simply wanted someone to scratch her ears.
After a few moments she wandered over to Zeus and politely sniffed him from head to tail. Satisfied that he posed no threat whatsoever, she turned away without another thought. Zeus, meanwhile, finally seemed to realize that she wasn't interested in eating him after all. His body relaxed, his ears perked up, and for the first time since she had appeared, he cautiously stood to his feet.
Then something happened that I did not expect.
Without any prompting from me, the Rottweiler simply turned around and began walking down the road in front of us as though she had somewhere important to be. I tightened my grip on Zeus's leash and slowly started following behind her, leaving plenty of distance.
The transformation in Zeus was immediate.
The dog who had spent the last mile weaving from one side of the road to the other suddenly walked in a perfectly straight line. He stopped diving into ditches. He stopped cutting across my path. He stopped pulling against the leash altogether. His attention had shifted completely. Every ounce of his focus was fixed on the dog walking ahead of him.
Once we had walked a while and I had quite a bit of distance from her, I decided to try a slow running interval.
The Rottweiler sensed we were speeding up behind her, so she broke into an easy jog.
Zeus matched her pace perfectly.
For the next two miles, my completely untrained Husky became the easiest running partner I had ever had. I settled into the peaceful rhythm I had been hoping for all afternoon, smiling to myself at how wonderfully ridiculous the whole scene was. After all the frustration, all the stopping and starting, and all the worrying about whether I could even enjoy running again, the solution God had provided was something I never would have imagined.
Apparently, all Zeus had needed was someone to follow.
Leading Us Home
The run that I had dreaded for days had become one of the most peaceful runs I could remember.
As we turned left into our driveway, the Rottweiler followed us for a few more steps before cautiously wandering a short distance into the front yard. I knelt down and called to her, hoping she might come a little closer. I wanted to give her a bowl of water and perhaps help her find her family. It seemed like the least I could do after she had unknowingly rescued my afternoon.
She looked at me for a moment, quietly wagged her tail, and then turned around. Without hesitation, she headed back toward the path we had just traveled, disappearing in the same direction she had first come from.
I watched until she was out of sight. I'm sure she was simply heading home.
As for me, I think God was leading me back to mine.
Not back to a house, but back to myself. Back to the woman He had created me to be before grief, exhaustion, and sadness had convinced me that those days were over.
It struck me later that evening how much Zeus and I had in common.
For the first part of our run, he had been distracted by everything around him. One moment he was chasing a scent in the ditch. The next he was cutting across my path. He was expending an incredible amount of energy but making very little progress. Yet the moment he had something worthwhile to follow, everything changed. His path became straight, his pace became steady, and what had once been chaotic suddenly became peaceful.
Isn't that often true of us?
When our attention is scattered, we spend so much of our lives chasing one thing after another. We pursue success, comfort, security, approval, entertainment, or whatever happens to capture our attention in the moment. We exhaust ourselves running in every direction except the one God is calling us to walk.
Hebrews gives us a similar picture:
"Let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith." (Hebrews 12:1–2)
God knows exactly what His children need, and sometimes His provision arrives in ways we never would have imagined. That afternoon, His answer happened to have four legs and a wagging tail.
The irony wasn't lost on me.
I had spent weeks worrying about whether I could run again, while God had already been preparing everything I needed. The obstacle I thought would keep me from moving forward wasn't really the obstacle at all. Before I ever stepped out the front door, He already knew there would be a peaceful road, a quiet Sunday afternoon, an overly enthusiastic Husky, and even a stray dog waiting just around the bend.
That's the beautiful thing about following God. He is never surprised by the road ahead because He has already walked it. My depression had convinced me that I would never become the person I used to be again.
God had a different plan.
Step by step, mile by mile, He was leading me home.
Our Heavenly Father delights in meeting us in the ordinary moments of life. Sometimes His guidance comes through Scripture. Sometimes through another person. Sometimes through a quiet prompting of the Holy Spirit.
And sometimes...
it comes in the form of an unexpected companion on a country road, reminding us that our Shepherd has never stopped leading us home.
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