Trusting the Pavement

My heart is pounding. I’m on my seventh mile. My feet are parting with the ground only to reunite with it in pattern. Over and over and over again. My lungs are pleading for air, my veins are pulsing with endurance, and my entire body has succumbed to subliminal exhaustion. I am training for a half marathon.

Today, as I heard my Nike coach praise me for reaching my seventh mile, I looked down to discover an epiphany shining as boldly as a fresh quarter on the pavement. It’s a sort of insane thought that is actually quite morbid, so please bear with me. I thought to myself after seven miles of putting one foot in front of the other, “What if I’m running on top of a hidden sinkhole and this sidewalk just caves in?” If that’s not motivation, I don’t know what is!

But, this morbid thought actually gave me a very peaceful one that caused me to stop running and add to my list in my phone labeled, “Article Ideas for Shelby Says”.

As I finished the rest of my run, I had made a mental outline of the article idea I put in my phone. Building on certain highlights and main points that I wanted to include in this article, things that came to my mind as important elements of the blog post, what the middle body text would say, how I would end the article, etc. To summarize all of my thoughts, I’ll condense it to one question. What if we trusted God as much as we trust the ground we walk on?

Just think about it for a second. When we get out of bed, we don’t hesitate to put our feet on the floor and walk into the kitchen. When we walk outside, we don’t question the structural integrity of the parking lot. We absent-mindedly walk as if the ground below us is the most trustworthy constant in our lives. We just put one foot in front of the other while we focus on the thousand other things going on in our day. We drive to work and church without wondering when the road will fall into a pit. Now, THAT is trust.

Now, I’m not talking about trusting God through the easy times. That’s great and all. But, the measure of trust can be found in the hardest times. In the I-have-no-idea-how-this-will-end times. As my veteran readers know, I love to correlate my life experiences to those of people in Scripture. If anyone is an expert in hard times, it’s my dude Job.

If you’re not familiar with the book of Job, just think of a recent bad day you’ve had. Now multiply that rough day times about seven hundred. For the sake of not publishing my first book, I will summarize this passage. In Job 1, Satan notices how consecrated and faithful Job is in God. Job is very blessed, having livestock, land, ten children, and a wife. So, Satan is like (translated to 2018 vernacular), “Yo, God. Your dude Job is super faithful, but look at all the awesome things You’ve blessed him with. I bet if I cursed him and took all of his stuff, he would turn on you and resent you in the hard times.” Long story short, God gives Satan permission to mess with Job on the condition of not taking his life. He loses all of his livestock, land, and family. It gets to the point where he shaves his head and rips off his clothes so that he can come to the Lord with literally nothing but himself. Yes, Job got depressed and wanted to pretty much die. Yes, he was tempted to complain. But, he always knew the omnipotence of God.

After 37 chapters of ruthless mocking from his peers for his faith in God, Job is rewarded. God sees this man with nothing that is still worshipping Him, so God restores Job with twice as much property as before, a new family, and an extremely long life (140 years to be exact).

Job had nothing and He still trusted that God would not fall through on Him. Job trusted God as naturally and as easily as we trust the pavement beneath our feet. I think we could all learn a lesson of faith from Job, because something as trivial and temporary as a sidewalk does not need to win our trust over God. An earthquake or a jackhammer can turn that pavement into dust, but the earth trembles at the name of our Lord.

Next time you go for a jog or walk across the parking lot (if running just isn’t your thing), survey the surface beneath your feet and see how your trust in God compares to your trust in the pavement. Be honest with yourself, which one do you actually trust more?

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