Huff and puff

Yesterday while running I came up behind a guy briskly walking. He was dressed appropriately for exercising...tennies, athletic shorts, t-shirt. And then suddenly, I saw his right hand go up, and two seconds later a cloud of smoke ascend above his head. He was smoking! He was walking and smoking. As I passed, I turned toward him and smiled, really just wanting to see if, in fact, he was walking and smoking. Yup. He was.

For the next mile or so I found myself contemplating this. It would have been different had be been in street clothes, walking and smoking, on his way to a store or a restaurant or a bar. But he was dressed to exercise, and he was on a somewhat secluded part of a path filled with people who use the path to exercise—rollerblade, walk, run, bike. And he was smoking.

I mean, maybe he wasn’t really exercising per se, but just trying to release some stress. Maybe he had spent the whole day at the hospital with a sick family member and just really needed a smoke to take the edge off.

Maybe he was an alcoholic trying to kick his drinking habit, and needed a cigarette to get him through the hour.

But all the potential scenarios I came up with in my head didn’t require the walking part. I mean, you can take the edge off with a cigarette while sitting on your bum on the porch. No need to walk. It definitely seemed like a diet-coke-at-McDonald’s situation (order two Big Macs, a large fry and THEN a diet coke).

So, then I tried to think about the places in my life where I do the same thing. I somehow managed to justify and explain every situation where I may do something along these lines (obviously). That is, until I got to my faith.

Living out a faith that is not diet-coke-at-McDonald’s is not natural; it’s a constant challenge. So often we walk—oh we’re walking...we’re going to church, we’re praying, we’re doing all the things we think Christians should be doing. But then we’re also smoking (Not meant literally. See post on cigars!). Attitudes and actions—or sometimes lack thereof—completely negate the walking. We huff and puff in our worry or our selfishness or anger or fear or whatever it is you smoke. And then we wonder why we walk alone. Why some aren’t always up for the hike...

Because it’ll be a hike no matter what. It’s just a bit easier without the cigarette.