zeal for your house consumes me

the greatest lesson I learned while training to run marathons was
the all consuming discipline of following
the training schedule.

nothing dominated my brain more than
when the next run
was to take place.

what time would I run?
what would I eat?
how much water had I taken in?
had I used the bath room?
where would I use a bathroom on long runs if I had to go?
was it a day of rest?
how many miles did I have to complete?
how fast was each mile?
should I stash a water bottle along the way?
what trail would I follow?
how many hills did my run have?
how quickly would I recover?
did my breathing sustain over the long runs?
would I get cramps in my legs?
what would I wear as I ran?
should I wave, smile, or say to hi other runners?
do I have the right music to listen to?
should I listen to music while running?
what is the weather like?
what kind of road conditions are present?
did I have clean running gear?
how many miles were on my shoes?
why did they change the asics 2150's?
how come I was getting blisters?

these questions would go around and around,
on and on in my brain
and it would repeat after each box was checked and each training run completed.

it consumed me.
nothing rose above the Hal Higdon training schedule in my mind.
nothing.

Today I read that the zeal for your house consumes me*.
Zeal-even more passionate than addiction and fear,
Zeal-even more poetic and heroic than hate,
Zeal for his father's house drove every move.
And this zeal for God drove Jesus.
Every day.
It defined every action,
It guided every thought,
It completed every sentence.

In this day, will I choose to make
my God my all-consuming motive, action, thought, word, and deed?

*John 2:17