Since my heart attack at the end of February, the only exercise I have done is walking.  Lily and I started walking soon after I got out of the hospital. At first our walking pace was slow – my normal walking pace is like a teenager walking to school in the morning, not fully awake and not in a hurry to get there.  But, after a while, our walking pace started to increase until, eventually, I was walking about as fast as I could.  Lily, on the other hand, has another gear somewhere in her that causes sparks to fly from the bottom of her shoes.

 I just knew that if I was to increase my exercising, I needed to move beyond walking. That decision, however, was much to Lil’s disappointment because she has really enjoyed walking together (I guess I could keep walking with her, but that’s another story). I decided it was time to ride my bike around the neigbourhood to increase my cardio exercise.  So, last week I took the bike out and it felt really good to get on it again and ride.  At first the streets were pretty flat, but then I went down a hill, a long hill.  Well, you know what happens when you go down a hill – you have to come back up the other side at some point.  But somehow, when you are flying down the hill and speeding up with no effort, you don’t think of what is waiting for you when you get to the bottom.

 Once I reached the bottom, I was faced with a long climb that seemed much longer that the decent.  I didn’t think much of it at first, but as I got about two thirds of the way up the hill, I started to realize something.  For the first time since my heart attack, my legs were feeling like they were getting a work out, I was breathing heavy, and my heart was beating rather fast.  Normally, I would be feeling good about all those things, because that is what you want when you exercise.  But I got scared.  I had this thought, “Should my heart be beating this fast; should I be breathing this heavy?”  I was afraid that I was hurting my heart and not helping it, so I stopped.

I took my pulse to figure out how fast it was beating and I started to think I was crazy for going on this bike ride.  After about a minute or so, I decided I better just get home.  So I took a short cut and rode straight home, feeling discouraged and defeated.

I was thinking later on of how fear is a great tactic of Satan.  Fear causes us to stop and quit what we are doing, but even more than that, it causes us to feel discouraged and defeated so that we don’t want to try again.  The solution to this is to check in with God and get his perspective, through prayer and through his Word.  2 Timothy 1:7 says, “For God has not given us a spirit of fear and timidity, but of power, love, and self-discipline. (NLT)”.  Fear should not stop us from obeying God and following through on what he wants us to do.

I checked in with my doctor about my fear, and now armed with some advice and a proper perspective, I am going for another bike ride today.

Until next time!

Pastor Paul