At the core of it all: An epiphany

Core definition from www.dictionary.com: the central, innermost, or most essential part of anything.

Today, I competed in my 3rd race in 3 weeks, there's still 2 more to come in the next 2 weeks! =] The race today was different from the previous races; today, I was racing with a bunch of friends who together with me had gone through 1 year of training for this event. I was racing with my team - NUS Aquathlon. It is amazing to see how I have changed over 1 year; last year's race expectations were different from this year's. I completed the biathlon last year in 1hr 48mins. Therefore, any timing this year will make me feel good about myself theoretically, but no..

Today's swim was ok..I felt good for the swim out to sea. It was at a comfortable yet slightly fast pace. I made a mistake by sticking too close to the lane rope and got boxed in. The swimmers were super rough in the water, my goggles got slightly pulled off and sea water infiltrated the left one. It was a war out there. Upon the final turn into the stretch heading back to the beach, I got disorientated and I think I swam outside the demarcated lane. There was no one (marshaller) who came up to me to direct me back! When I realised, precious time had ticked away. I was aiming for a 27-28mins swim, and with that mistake my swim time became 32-33mins.

Whilst in the water heading back in the correct direction, I was thinking that perhaps I had been too slack. I should have checked out the swim route prior to the race! With a rough guide of the route, I would have been in a better position to estimate where I was in relation to the beach. Well..as Randy Pausch puts it in his book, The Last Lecture, ''experience is what you get when you didn’t get what you wanted." I believe that was what I had gotten in the swim today and from all the races back in 2008, experience..

Upon exiting the waters, Lincoln was there to cheer me on. I think he sensed that I was abit disappointed with my swim time as I told him the night before that I wanted to hit my target time of 1hr 15mins. "It's alright! Catch up on the run, you can do it!", was what he shouted. Off I went into the transition area, slipped on my shoes, took my running vest and bolted out for the 10km run. I was still filled with the confidence based on my 10km timing in the Newton Active Run last week and was aiming to run a 43min 10km in order to hit my target. I knew that it was possible, but I was wrong..

For the initial 5km, my anterior core section just died on me; it felt very very tense and I could not extend my stride length to go faster. I could only maintain a 5min/km pace. I have never ever felt this way before in my years of running, this was a first. Part of me wanted to just give up and seek medical attention, but another part of me wanted to go on as I was not competing for myself. I was spurred on by teammates Nicolas, Jon Ma, Zebin, Joshua Li, Kep Kee, Joshua Lim and Lemin who had made their 1st U-turn and were heading off for their remaining 8km. I hang on at that freaking slow pace.

I prayed for the pain to go away, asking God to take it all away. It was then that I got my epiphany. I have always taken part in endurance events because in the process of doing them, I find God's provision and love. He has never failed to help me whenever I needed that extra boost. He was always there for me. I looked within and asked myself, "had I done the same for Him?"

At church last night, Pastor Pacer was expounding on "Is Jesus your Lord?" He brought up very interesting points that modern day Christianity has evolved to a state of self-centredness from that of God-centredness. I could not agree more. More often than not, I find myself praying prayers like: "God, please help ME...", "God, I pray that you give ME..." It is all ME, MYSELF and I. The message preached nowadays has been diluted to the state that people receive the wonderful gift of salvation because something is promised to them. "I receive Jesus into my heart so that I can have a peaceful life ahead", "I receive Jesus into my heart so that I can experience His blessings".

Is Jesus really our Lord? Or is He just a vending machine, called to in times of need, forgotten in times of peace? Jesus owns us, not the other way round. It is expressed clearly in 1 Corinthians 6:19-20, "Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body."

My cramped up core muscles also made me remember a concept I learnt while reading a book entitled: Stop Acting like a Christian, Just Be One by Christine Caine. "Just as our physical core is responsible for every move our body makes, our spiritual core is responsible for our every thought, emotion, reaction and decision." I got it now, He was trying to show me the importance of the spiritual core through the phyical core. I now understood how hard it was to run with a cramped up physical core, therefore I could parallel it to how hard it was to live in this world with a weak spiritual core! This was the wake-up call I needed.

My spiritual core is indeed pretty weak, and I have been doing nothing to try and strengthen it. As with many things in Christianity, a divine paradox once again shows up: building up a strong spiritual core will make life so much more easier to live, but to build up that strong spiritual core is not easy. I likened the run to the road of life, with a strong core, my run will be so much easier..

Soon, Shaun and Coach David overtook me at the National Sailing Centre. "Hang in there Norman!", shouted Coach. Aldrich was now also catching up. "Come on Norms, hang in there". I decided to give it a shot. I figured out that now I understood what He was trying to tell me, maybe He will take the pain off for the remainder of my run, which was about 5km. I gave chase to Coach David and Shaun and managed to catch up with the latter. After the 2nd U-turn, I upped my pace and my core loosened up more. I felt so energized and decided to revise my target to hit below 1hr 20mins.

I spun my necklace with the cross now behind my back as it was bouncing about infront and maintained the faster pace. I then realised that I was like 'carrying the cross' as stated in Luke 9:23, "And He said to all, "If anyone would come after Me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me."" It was getting really personal this time.

When I crossed the water point, I took a cup of water and gulped it down. Another realisation dawned upon me! My goodness, could you believe it that all this took place in my head during the 10km run! The water served a purpose only temporal; it quenched my thirst for the time being. It can be likened to what the world offers in terms of material possessions and the like; they will satisfy you only for the time being, after which you will be in search for better alternatives. When you take your focus off God and His will for your life, your heart begins to seek after false loves. As John 4:13 beautifully elucidates, "Jesus said to her, "Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty forever. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life."" Jesus is the only way to true satisfaction.

I finally managed to see the finishing point in sight and made a mad dash for it, hoping to hit my revised target. I crossed the line at 1hr 19mins flat on my Timex. Aldrich immediately congratulated me and helped me out. During the course of the run, I did voice out to him that my core was gone. He encouraged me throughout the entire race to hang on. My last realisation came, that spiritual support is very important in our walk with God. The people we hang out with, the support they give be it spiritual or not is very important to sustain us through life's tough patches. I feel glad that I had set a personal best which is a huge improvement from last year even though I believe that I could have done better.. However, whatever I gleaned today is still so much more apart from the race. I will end off with quotes that impacted me from my captain and boss, Aldrich, who will be stepping down in 1 week's time. Whoever is going to be captain will have really freaking huge shoes to fill! =]

"Don’t worry, you've built your base and nobody can take it away from you."
"Don’t burn out, take it easy; you’re only year 1, there’s still next year."
"This is just a small race, look at the big picture."