The reason that you haven’t heard much from me about my running during the past several weeks is that my running has been close to non-existent. No, I’ve not gotten lazy nor given up on running. I injured my knee about 10 weeks ago, and it has made it almost impossible to run.

However, I’ve approached running as a learning experience, especially learning Biblical principles about practical Christian living. You might be wondering, “What can you learn from the Bible about a bum knee?”

Much.

When the book of Hebrews compares the Christian life to an endurance race, it uses athletic terminology. It says, “Lift your drooping hands and strengthen your weak knees” (Heb. 12:12). Before my injury, a number of friends asked me, “Sammy, don’t you have knee problems at your age?”

My response was always, “That has not been a problem.” Then at the beginning of February, I was about 15 seconds from the end of my workout, when I heard a loud “pop.” Pain shot through my knee, and it gave out. Since then, I’ve struggled with the pain.

I finally had a MRI, and it showed that I had a number of issues inside my knee. The problems have been there for a long time. They just exposed my weakness during that February morning workout. I made an appointment with a well known sports medicine doctor in San Antonio. After viewing the x-rays and MRI, he came up with a plan to strengthen my knees.

I’m hoping to be back running within the next two months. Here’s what God is teaching me through this. My knee had the problems long before I recognized them. There were things that I could have done to strengthen my knees had I paid attention to those problems. I just didn’t acknowledge that I had a weakness, even though my right knee occasionally collapsed under me when I ran. I just ignored it because it didn’t hurt at the time.

That’s exactly what we do in our Christian lives. There are often signals of a weakness in our walk with the Lord. However, we ignore them until they become a full blown injury. It often sidelines us for weeks, and sometimes months and years. What I’ve learned is the vital importance of recognizing our weaknesses and allowing God to strengthen them.

By the way, God has a great plan to strengthen our weaknesses. The Bible says, “His strength is made perfect in our weaknesses.” When we identify our weaknesses and bring them to the Lord, His strength is shown to be perfect as He turns our weaknesses into a mighty testimony of His power.

Do you have weak knees? Strengthen them. Don’t do what I did and ignore the signs of weakness. Bring those weak knees to the Master Physician, and let Him touch, heal and strengthen them. He has a great plan for your weak knees.

This past weekend, I had a wonderful experience running in the Texas State Senior Games. The weather was perfect - sunny, little wind, and about 68 degrees Fahrenheit. My only concern was I have experienced a little bit of asthma over the past few weeks.

I told a friend before I ran, "I'll just do my best and it will be what it will be." That's the same attitude that I've taken in ministry. My part is to give it my best effort. The rest is in God's hands. If there are many people who respond to my message, that's wonderful. If there are only a few who respond, or if no one responds, that's also wonderful - as long as I gave it my best effort and trusted God with the results.

"Just do it!" is a logo for a famous athletic shoe company, but many times it's much more than a slogan to the athlete. It becomes an important part of his/her life. I found that to be true this week in Liberia. It rained every day (until today) since we arrived in the country. That makes it extremely difficult to put in a running workout in this war torn country.

To begin with, there aren't many places to run. And when it rains every day and you are on a tight schedule, it becomes almost impossible. Therefore, when a break in the rain came and I was back at my hotel, I knew I needed to run. The only place to do it was on the street in front of the hotel.