In church yesterday, the deacon had an interesting analogy. I'll try to recreate it here as best I can.
Imagine you really want to watch the Vols play, but you have to miss the game, so you record it to watch it later. Before you get a chance to watch it, someone says, "How bout that game? Isn't it amazing that Vols won!?" You might feel somewhat frustrated that you know the ending, but you go home to watch the replay anyways. The Vols throw and interception and get scored on in the first play. A few minutes later, the Vols fumble and the other team scores again. How do you feel? When you know the outcome of the game is positive, these screw-ups don't mean as much to you. You don't have to watch the game in an anxious state, because you know how things will turn out. Instead, you can watch with joy. Isn't this how our Christian life should be? We know the outcome. We know God has great things in store for us, and we know that in the end, God 'wins' and we are safe. So we should live our lives with the expectant joy of someone that knows the outcome, even if there are fumbles along the way.
I thought it was a really nice analogy, and it invokes an attitude that I'd like to try to adopt. I worry way too much. I have a fantastic life, but I always worry that I am going to lose the things that make me happy. But no one can take the Number One things from me, so I really should not stress out so much!
Anyhow, on another topic, I had a great day yesterday going to a 5K with Anya. I wasn't able to run the whole thing; I just hadn't trained enough, but I knew that going in. I am proud to say that I ran more than the first mile, and then I walked and jogged the rest. I would estimate that I ran a total of 2.5 miles and walked the rest, but I can't confirm that. I really liked that Anya and I had a plan: we would start together, and we'd meet up at the end and have dinner. But she didn't have to stay with me the whole time, so she could run the whole race and I could walk as needed. It was a great race day and I was glad to get to participate. I hope that next time I can run the whole race! :) My finishing time was meh, but I'll note here that it was 39:52 so that hopefully I can look back on this in the future and see my improvement. Oh yeah, and dinner at Savelli's afterwards was SO GOOD. I will definitely want to go back there sometime and would recommend it to others. :)
