Recounting my 10km run

I had a 10km run for "STEPS for a cause" today at East Coast Park. Only had 4.5 hrs of sleep on the night before. Pastor Chong Chin Chung did an opening address and briefly talked about how Paul saw our spiritual journey of faith as race. After doing warm-ups, the run commenced shortly.

The main thing which I held onto as part of a tagline from a conference organised by John Piper.
"... I act the miracle".
Basically what it wanted to bring our was that every good thing that comes out from us is not possible if God does not enable us to do so. God is the sovereign worker who enables me to work and bear fruits for Him.

But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace to me was not without effect. No, I worked harder than all of them—yet not I, but the grace of God that was with me. (1 Cor 15:10)


The grace of God is not only a pardon we receive, but a power we experience. As Jonathan Edwards says, God's grace comes to us passively and makes us active.

In efficacious grace we are not merely passive, nor yet does God do some and we do the rest. But God does all, and we do all. God produces all, we act all. For that is what he produces, viz. [namely] our own acts. God is the only proper author and fountain; we only are the proper actors. We are in different respects, wholly passive and wholly active. (The Works of Jonathan Edwards, Vol. 2, p. 557)

John Piper also writes that God's working and ours are not mutually exclusively, but powerfully bound together in sanctification — God's work prompting and empowering ours.

God's work in us does not eliminate our work; it enables it. We work because he is the one at work in us. Therefore, the fight for joy is possible because God is fighting for us and through us. All our efforts are owing to his deeper work in and through our willing and working. (When I Don't Desire God, 41).

And so, I made up my mind that I will keep on running and not stop, to act the miracle (apply it loosely). We often think of runs or simple tasks as managable tasks and therefore, we often think that, it is not a miracle. But perhaps we should think otherwise.



Along the way, there was a battle with pride. And when others saw how I was running this race, pride seemed to whisper to me. "Come on, it would not hurt to take pride in your current state. Take all that attention and take it for yourself."

And I fought back by reminding myself that I have a God who has made my current state attainable. I acknowledge this sovereign God and all glory should be for Him. I shall humbly submit to Him, because without the Lord, I am nothing.



Looking back, I really could not have done it without God. I merely acted the miracle. God gave the miracle and provided what I needed to keep running to the end, even when each step I took apparently drained energy from my body. Thanks be to God! =)