Running TO Jesus

I grew up with exercise-induced asthma. Any amount of running, no matter how short the distance, set my lungs on fire and threw me into a wheezing cough. Through the years, I tried picking up jogging at a really slow pace, but after a while, the same thing would happen and it felt like I was going to cough up a lung. I chose instead to bicycle, take long walks and participate in one of my favorite activities, swimming. Although these activities were easier on my lungs, swimming made my lungs almost feel like they were fully inflated and almost as if pressurized. It was a strange feeling and it did not keep me from one of my favorite past-times.

When I turned 40 I developed chronic wheezing and an annoying though not too bothersome chronic cough 24 hours a day. I started asthma medication, which helped for about a year but then I started to develop a bad case of asthmatic bronchitis during the winter time (for three years in a row), which made my previously chronic low-grade asthma a more pronounced chronic asthma. When going up to twice a day on my medication no longer helped, I had to go to a twice a day inhaler along with the medication.

One of the things I often thought about when my asthma worsened was the day I would be in heaven and I could run without my lungs being on fire and without feeling like I was going to hack up a lung. I dreamed of running across a very large flower-covered field TO Jesus, and I was going to run fast and without pain for the first time ever into his loving arms. I was going to take advantage of it too. I often had that dream, even at night, and it made me smile. I could not even imagine how glorious that was going to feel.

Though many of you may not be able to relate to having asthma or the feeling of your lungs burning and feeling like you are about to hack up your lungs, there may be other things that will prevent you from running (literally or figuratively) toward God someday in heaven. Maybe something bad happened in your life and you decided you no longer believe in God if this is how things are going to be. Maybe you are beginning to have doubts about God as a loving, caring God who wants to save you because of all the evil in this world. How could so many bad things happen when there is supposed to be a God who sees all things and we are told he still loves us and cares for us? When my husband (or wife) walked out and abandoned me and our children, saying he/she no longer loved us after many years in a seemingly happy marriage, where was God?

The key here is to realize that as long as we live in this sin-filled earth, things will continue to get worse until Jesus returns again, as the Bible said it would. Sin will continue to spiral further down and things will get harder. This, however, changes nothing about God’s character. This says a lot about man’s character and how, when left to our own devices and desires, things spiral out of control and bad things happen at an increasingly alarming rate.

Instead of running towards Jesus, the world is running away from him, and we see the results every day throughout our world. God does not cause the bad things to happen in this world, sin does. God gives us free will to choose how we are going to live and unfortunately, the majority of people chase other things besides a relationship with Christ.

Many people will die not knowing how it will feel to run to Jesus for the first time without pain and all the other earthly miseries that tie earthly bodies down. They will sadly choose to continue living in unending pain for eternity and not knowing the joy that will come from running at top-notch speed towards the one who came and died for them, even while they were yet living in sin. He wants that all of us choose him and life on this earth that will last through eternity. This earth is temporary but life after death is permanent. Although people have hundreds of excuses why they “don’t believe” in God or in heaven, or why they are angry at God and choose to turn away from him, they will one day find out the real truth, that heaven and eternity are for real and that our decision on earth to run towards Christ or away from him has eternal consequences.

On a side note, God completely touched and healed my chronic, worsening asthma! Right before he healed my asthma, even the inhaler had begun to lose its effectiveness. Things did not look good from that point of view, which was discouraging, but I still kept my eyes on the fact that at least one day, even if it meant waiting until I got to heaven, it would be healed. I went to bed one night after a special healing service at church and being prayed for and anointed for healing and woke up the very next morning with no more chronic cough and the wheezing was completely gone! I have not touched the inhaler or medication since that day!

If you have pictured yourself running to Jesus (if you are saved and heaven-bound), what things do you see that tie you down now that would be gone in heaven? Despite those things that limit you on earth, do you still believe or have those things turned you away from Christ?

In order to run to Christ in heaven, we must run to him now…while still on earth.

CHAPTER 14, "The Lord Who Heals You," in Struck Down, But Not Destroyed (Marie Rose). Available on Amazon, Barnes & Noble and Thomas Nelson/Zondervan