Undignified

“I will become even more undignified than this, and I will be humiliated in my own eyes.” 2 Samuel 6:22

The summer of 2009 started off the way it always does in Texas.  Hot.  By the end of May I found myself spending as much time as I could in a pool which was pretty daunting since I was out of shape and had put on a few pounds over the years.  It was during one of these days in a pool that I was complaining to a girlfriend of mine about the weight battle I was constantly having.  I told her that I felt like I should start running in the mornings.  She said that she felt like she was supposed to start running too.  We decided to run together, and so began a lesson for me in becoming undignified.  The first morning of running before 6am was a challenge.  We were going to run a mile-ish amount, and I felt overwhelmed from the second my feet hit the pavement.  My friend had run a marathon before, what was I thinking?  We talked briefly about the fact that we should pray while we ran, and glorify God as we tried to get our “temples” back into living conditions, but we ran in silence that first day, struggling with every step (or at least I did).  I was happy to be finished, and hoping that this was a short lived adventure.  Jesus had other plans.  The next day my girlfriend showed up at my house with a conviction on her heart that would change my life and my love for the Lord forever.  She said, “I feel like God wants us to pray out loud while we run.  I don’t know what this will look like, but we can take turns.  I’ll start.”  And we were off.  Huffing, puffing and praying.  Almost every week day of that summer we ran and prayed.  We prayed for our children.  We prayed for our husbands.  We prayed for our finances.  We prayed for a friend’s nephew.  We prayed for another friend’s grandmother.  We prayed for people’s salvation.  We prayed for missions in Africa.  We prayed for our children’s spouses.  We prayed for our husband’s jobs.  We prayed for our relationship with Christ.  We prayed to follow Jesus wherever He might lead us.  We prayed through rain.  We prayed through tears.  We prayed through coughing fits.  We prayed through aching sides.  We prayed through neighbors staring.  We prayed through those morning runs for things that I never imagined I would pray for in front of another living being, and God heard us, and we could feel Him listening.  Two out of shape girls in their mid-thirties decided to run for a summer.  Nothing too out of the ordinary.  What happened instead was Jesus being as present as He always is, and my girlfriend having the courage of her conviction to pray out loud while we ran.  Simple.  Crazy.  Undignified. 

In our undignity we found Jesus waiting and cheering us on.  And I couldn’t get enough.

My prayer is that becoming undignified will become beautiful to you, and you just won’t be able to get enough either.