Today as I was out running the last 20 miles on The ING NYC Marathon course I felt like I re-learned a very important lesson and fulfilled my purpose for coming to New York City this week. I was having one of those days where I was tired and my run wasn’t going as well as I hoped. All I could think about was how off my body felt, how tired I was from getting up at 5:30 am, how hard it was for me to navigate the city roads and traffic, how I wished I was back home in the forest. Really I was reaping frustration because I had let my heart become too self-focused. As I ran along, God was telling me this is what it is like to be running with an inward focus, but it doesn’t have to be this way. Though I heard Him, it didn’t make it from my head to my heart until after the run, as I lay on the massage table, still irritated by the morning, God impressed on my heart, get outside yourself.
It’s ironic that I am writing about lacking an outward focus less than two days after Sara and I launched our foundation, the Hall Steps Foundation. Its goal is taking small steps towards the marathon goal of ending poverty. The vision for the foundation came from one of my personal heroes, Mother Teresa, who said, “I can do no great things, just small things with great love.” Out of this quote our slogan was born, “small steps, great love”. Marathoners know best about taking lots of small steps towards accomplishing a seemingly impossible goal, whether it’s to break 2 hours or 8. Through the Hall Steps Foundation our aim is to encourage runners to take their own “small steps” by focusing outside themselves on others both in their community and around the world living in poverty.
Yet, despite my excitement about starting this endeavor and belief in its mission, somehow I had lost focus. This morning I woke up with the wrong perspective and forgotten my life and running is not all about me. I had forgotten that the truly special moments that I have experienced in running are all when I was outwardly-focused. When I set my mind on God and praising Him through my running, thinking about my wife, family, and all those who I love, and remembering the people I am impacting a positive force in my running and is how God designed me to ideally function. The more I reach out to positively impact others, the more my motivation and focus changes when running. After visiting Zambia with World Vision in the fall of 2008, the faces of the kids we were to bring clean water to became burned in my mind’s eye. I often go there when I am hurting on a run finding new strength that I couldn’t find in myself.
The goal of today’s run was to preview the last 20 miles of The ING NYC Marathon course, but I accomplished so much more than that. I learned an important lesson about what enables me to really fly: focusing outside myself by focusing on others I love.