Just Start

Easy run.  It's an oxymoron, and I know that after all these years.  (I started track in 7th grade, just to prove to my brother that I could run twice around the track.)
Some rare days the run is easier.  I feel strong and full of energy, or at least coffee, and the hills are just a nice challenge.  But I can't ever remember a day that running was as easy as, say, having another cup with the morning newspaper.
Most days, as I lay my GPS on the porch to locate the satellites, and go back in to tie my shoes and take one last swig of water, I don't feel like I can do it.  One mile looks hard, and my planned 5 or 6 I don't ever think through.  I just start.
Strap on the watch, walk to the neighbor's mailbox, find the button on my wrist in the dusky dawn, and start.  It's not usually as hard as I expect, but it's not an ice cream cone, either.
 And it helps me tackle a lot more things throughout my day, that just need a good start.  The papers I should write for grad school look impossible.  Dinner these days, on our new, improved, healthier eating plan involves more washing and chopping than I prefer.  Homeschooling an 8th grader for the year, writing a Bible study, cleaning, laundry, phone calls, caring for the poor...tasks God has set before me, large and small, work better if I just start.
Often on the run I pray for obedience...for doing the good things God has prepared in advance for me to walk in (not run from.)  And often, His response is to just start.  There will not be many easy runs, or even easy days.  But if I can muster the obedience to just start, I am always amazed at the strength and provision I find on the way, and what God may decide to do with my small beginning.


Jonah 3: 3-5 speaks to me of the great work God did, in a great city, with the small, reluctant start of His prophet.  
"Jonah obeyed the word of the Lord and went to Nineveh. Now Nineveh was a very important city—a visit required three days.  On the first day, Jonah started into the city. He proclaimed: “Forty more days and Nineveh will be overturned.” The Ninevites believed God. They declared a fast, and all of them, from the greatest to the least, put on sackcloth."