Endurance | Run Journey Podcast

Hey, I'm Chuck, and I'm here with Kirsten and Justin, and this week is about endurance. It's about staying with it when the excitement wears off. I don't know about you, but I need this message. This is preaching to me. So one of the questions to kick it off, do you think endurance is taught or caught? That a nature or nurture thing? I think it's caught. I mean, you can learn and talk theory all you want. Endurance is in action, you know what I mean? Yes, it's a mindset, but I think it's a mindset after habits that get you to that point where you go, no, I know I can get through this. No, I know I've got it. I think it's caught. I agree with that. Yeah. I tend to. What about you? Do you agree with that? I totally agree with that. I don't have many people that are walking me through the step-by-step checklist of like this comes before this, before this to build your endurance, even though it might seem like that online. I feel like there's a lot of pages out there that will try and teach you that, but they're not doing anything as much as my life experiences and what I've gone through to build up that endurance and that muscle. So I think I agree. I agree. I agree. I had a season of my life that I only saw as a season in retrospect where God was giving me a lot of opportunities to build endurance.

So, you know, I grew up in a family that my parents are super risk-averse, like no risk. They didn't want anything risky. So it led me to kind of be in a comfort spot for much of my life. But I had a season where, you know, whether it was learning to run and ultimately running marathons and half marathons, learning to ride a motorcycle, doing some trips that were beyond my skill level and needing to push myself. I had all these things happening. When I look back on all of that, I agree with you that it's caught because that was a season in my life where God was developing endurance in me. It was a season in my life where I had lots of things that I was going to wake up day after day after day after day and not be good at, but still have to apply myself and do it again and again and again and again. And then over time, you do get muscle memory and you do get those skills. And I think for me, that was just probably a really formational moment in my life as an adult where God was like, I want you doing all of these physical things because I want to teach you endurance. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Have you had any seasons like that where you would say like this thing specifically formed endurance in me? I think of my marriage immediately. Like my husband and I met in college and. He's dreamy. Jack is so dreamy. I mean, come on, come on. Your husband is pretty dope. He's pretty dope. No, he is. He is so great. And we have this joke of we walk down the aisle like still not knowing each other at all. We did like the very typical Christian thing of, oh, we we met each other.

And a year later, we were engaged. And five months later, we were married. And so like we started from what felt like ground zero and just the endurance to deal with the hard things, the emotional things. We both grew up completely different. So there's a lot of just things that at first we were not aligned on or getting through. But man, the endurance of marriage that I've seen, that's just through experiences. Exactly. We were just saying it's like, man, now we feel like we could go forever like and we will. Yeah. And I think that's such a gift to understand and realize, like, oh, all that crap that we had to go through, that was to build endurance for for what's to come. Yeah, that's right. Good. That's good. Yeah. I mean, if we talk about it in this journey, like just last week, we're talking about suffering. At the point of endurance, you've already made it through the suffering or you've endured that moment of suffering and that growth that's happening. You know, if you're working out, your muscle fiber is all breaking down and you're like, I'm so sore. And we frequently found if I work out the next day, then that soreness and that suffering starts to wear off a little bit. It's when I just sit in it. I think you've already made it through the suffering. So you've already got those that muscle built to go, OK, I can endure this. I can I can. I'm a different person. That's why I think the like a habit I have of looking back, you talked about it, I think, a couple of weeks ago, like looking back over the last 12 months and just going, what have I endured? That's where am I today?

That's different than I was there, because now it's caught. But I'm remembering what what I've caught. You know what I mean? I have to engage my memory. Yeah. To go, no, I walked through that. Right. OK, wait, this feels normal to me now. Yeah. Yeah. Six months ago, that felt crazy. That's really. You want to remember what you've endured? Journal. Yeah, that's like the easiest tool for me is to go back and like, oh, my gosh, I didn't even remember going through that. And now I get to talk. someone else younger through that so that they can have that moving forward. Yeah, that's that recap. We were talking earlier, we all got kids and it's like, you know, you have two kids and then, you know, somebody babysits one of them and you're just down to one kid and you're like, I used to be overwhelmed by one kid. Now this feels amazing, this feels like vacation, right, or whatever. We do that so many spheres of life if we just pause and go, wait, what have I walked through? How am I different today? Yeah, let's get super practical. I love your journaling, I love you. Hey, remember, look back 12 months. Like, what are some practical ways that keep you motivated when that endurance starts to wane? And let's just brainstorm, we can popcorn it. So, you know, I mean, I think one of the things for me

is like reminding myself why I said yes in the first place. That's a really important one for me. Like, hey, I said I wanted to do this because writing that down is really powerful for me. So that's one of the ways to stay motivated. Hot take, I love having friends that are just aggressively real and truthful with me when I'm like, oh, boohoo me. Like, they're like, no, you've done this already. Like, pick up your boots or whatever this thing is and like, get going. Like, my husband is that for me, my sister is that for me. Like, they help me like pick my head and be like, oh, yeah, I can keep going, I can get through this. And so having the right people around you to push you, I think is helpful. I think that's so good. Really simple, I mean, for me is gratitude. Like, I started, I don't know, maybe 15 months ago, three things in the morning. Every morning, that's the first thing I do is I say three things to God I'm thankful for from the day before. And even if you take it specifically and go, all right, this thing feels like I'm having to endure it right now, the thing that feels painful, then choose that and say, where's my gratitude flow from that? It's remembering your why, but it's, okay, what are the good things that have been?

What do I love about this? Or what do I enjoy? And finding gratitude in that very thing that's causing you to endure, because it's real. Yeah, I love that, I love that. This is the point in the journey where I think there's some endurance required. You played the game a couple of times and you're like, all right, I gotta do this thing again. All right, now it's getting real. And I just wanna encourage you, what I've learned about endurance too is so true that the best of whatever it is that God is doing in my life, the best is gonna happen through endurance. Like there is a point at which you realize like, man, I needed all of this to experience the fullness I'm experiencing now. And so just wanna encourage you to keep going. Whatever it is for you, whatever's gonna help you stay motivated, we're here to be a team to help you do that. You've got your group, you've got the journey. Let's endure, let's endure. Let's not stop short of all that God has for us. Yep.