Life isn't scaring us off, it's inviting us in

​This Saturday, I'll run my 6th marathon. Nothing about that frightens me. That's because in 2016, I ran my first marathon.

Before that first marathon, I was sure running 26.2 miles would crush me. I was pretty sure that was an impossible distance.

But somehow I got it done.

Somehow it didn't crush me.

Since that first marathon - I've run many more, and even run a handful of races over the marathon distance. I'm not beating any speed records; shoot, there are races I don't beat any one or any thing at all.

But where I place in a running race has always been the least influential part of this running journey on my life.

The MOST influential part? Discovering there is nothing in life that can crush me.

Saying that might sound arrogant or self-assuming to you. But if you're someone who spent much of his life feeling like he was about to get crushed - well, I call it healing.

I call it learning that most of what I thought was going to crush me was my imagination - not life. I have learned that most of the challenges in life - most of the things that frighten us - they aren't out to get us, they are out to invite us.

A couple of years ago, I was standing in a remote village in Honduras. I couldn't have felt more foreign - more out of place. There was a constant wrestling in my mind between 'I have never been more at home' and 'how on earth did I get here?'

That 'how on earth did I get here?'- that was me poking me with the reminder that Honduras was once one of those places in life that was out to get me. It was my imagination trying to rob me of my peace.

That 'I have never been more at home' - that was life reminding me that most of what scares me isn't trying to scare me off, it's trying to invite me home.

I would have never been in Honduras if it wasn't for that first marathon. I believe that as strongly as I believe anything. That has nothing to do with me being able to run 26.2 miles. It has everything to do with discovering nothing is going to crush me.

Crossing the finish line of that first marathon, in many ways - it wasn't a finish line at all.

It was the starting line. The starting line of living the kind of life you can live when you start to understand nothing can crush you.

I have no idea how my race will go Saturday. I only know this.

It won't crush me.

It's simply one more challenge in life inviting me in, and I gladly accept it....