Falling down.

Having reached the eight mile mark in my Marathon training I am fear my long run on Friday to take me over the ten mile mark. But it has to be done if I am to achieve my goal. I can't simply turn up on the day and think I can do eight miles how hard can the rest be! I have to build my stamina, experience and understanding of how my body reacts as I get further into the race. I know it is going to be hard and it will hurt but if I am to get the medal and finish the race I must be determined in my training and stick with it.

Whilst in school this week doing a lesson I caught sight of a Japanese Proverb that said, "Fall down seven times get up eight times". Our Faith is not determined by many times we fall but whether we allow God to raise us up once more. For most of us we will fall far more than seven time but God will stick with us and keep picking us up. I have faith that God will keep me going in all situations, especially when I get to the point where there is still half the Marathon to go.

There is a song that has come to our worship groups attention in the last few weeks which has been so helpful to me in sticking in there with my faith. Its called "Give us your courage" by Tim Hughes and here are the lyrics:

I’m not backing down
I will stand my ground
Lifting high the name of Jesus
Holding out Your light
To a world in need
Living out the love of Jesus
And though the battles rage
Your blessing still will come

To the ends of the earth we will go
To the ends of the earth we will go
Fill us with power
Fill us with power
For the truth of Your Word we will stand
For the truth of Your Word we will stand
Give us Your courage
Give us Your courage

Be our strength and song
Till the battles won
Cause Your face to shine upon us
Stretch Your hand to save
Our God never fails
Nothing is impossible for You

Would You breathe on us
http://www.worshipcentral.org/audio/give-us-your-courage

I may fall but I pray my faith will help me up one more time.

Matt

Run Forest........

I have got a place in the Virgin London Marathon 2010 and last week I went for my first full session at the gym on my workout to build up my stamina. I ached a little the day after but not too badly.

I began my work out OK and the moved on to the cross trainer, which is like running with ski poles in your hands and not lifting your feet up. There are two directions: forwards and backwards. After about 7 mins I realised I had been running backwards. No wonder it was hard work and feeling a little weird. My mind was thinking forward but my body was going backwards. Once I changed directions and got into my stride It felt much better. When I went to the gym on Sunday I made sure I was going the right way.

You can probably see where this is heading. As the church we may think we are going in the right direction but it seems hard work. If that is the case then we need to stop what we are doing and refocus our methods. It is easy to plough head on for a long time with taking looking back to see where we have been, where we have gone wrong and we we need to do differently. God doesn't want his church to work hard, I believe he wants his church to work smart.

26.3 miles is a long way so I had better make sure I train and run smart.

Matt

New Year

For someone who has a lot to say, I have been very quiet on the blogging front. I have being thinking about it lots but have not mustered up the will to do it. Not only that I have not being running since we moved to Aspley and I am feeling very unfit!!
So my new years resolution is to blog three times a week and run twice a week. So here is my blog entry and tomorrow morning I will be out running!!!!

On Saturday in the Pub after football I had a fairly random conversation with a guy called John. I had never me him before then but hopefully will again. We got chatting about my "Salvation Army hoddie." what he said has stuck with me over the past few days. He said "I thought you lot had gone, where are you!" A good question for us a church to answer. That is the second time I have heard that question in a few months - Jimmy Carr that asks that question at his gig.

So where are we? What are we doing? Who knows who and where we are? These are the questions we both locally and nationally we need to answer......and quickly.

What are we going to do about it?

Matt

Blogging and Running

Since moving to Nottingham I have neither blogged on been running. This is my attempt to at least have a go at doing one of them!! To be fair though I have been playing football (all be it as a sub for two 15 min cameo appearances!).

I have quite a lot that I should be blogging about but don't seem to have had the motivation to do it. There is the credit crunch, the Ryder cup, Zimbabwe, the US elections and the Political Conference season.

It was Brown's speech that interests me. I thought it was pretty good, I thought Brown himself was quite good. I was impressed with his emphasis on fairness and justice for all not only in this country but also across the world. He seems genuine in his passion to eradicate poverty by 2020. Some people may see this as political opportunism, some may see it as naiete or a mere pipe dream. Yet as a christian, my hope is that he is right, that it is possible and in my life time. It is not easy. We live in a world that is currently sufering from people greed of wealth and status. These core values surly must change if poverty is to be assigned to history.

I look forward to Cameron's response next week.

Matt

A time to run!

Well, I've done it. I have entered the ballot for the London Marathon for 2009.
I have always wanted to do it but never got round to it (probably never plucked up the courage to do it) but hopefully next year I will.
I have even planned some running routes and downloaded a training schedule. But I need to now find the motivation to go out running to prepare for the 26 miles ahead. It won't just happen, I need to put some effort in to finish - alive.

I update my blog with my progress.

Matt