Weekeong speaks "God and Newton Running"

Weekeong is our awesome pastor and currently leading the East Sector and Campus Ministry of our church with his beautiful wife, Joyce. He has two adorable sons and enjoys running, sports and reading.

Dear Campus,

It feels great to be back in Singapore after the International Leadership Conference in the sunny city of Los Angeles, California! The theme was “For All Generations” & we had an incredible time of fellowship, praying, worshipping God, listening to His Word & rededicating our hearts back to having faith for all generations to come!

In the midst of having appointments with old friends & meeting new ones, I got to share this with you. I had been dying to get my hands (and feet, actually) on a pair of running shoes that is not widely known in the US & unavailable for sale outside of it. So, I had it pre-ordered from the company that makes it in Boulder, Colorado and got it to be delivered to the hotel I was in the night I arrived! Imagine the thrill of seeing my package at the hotel concierge!

I went back to the room & tore everything open & found myself with the lightest, most responsive, forefoot running shoe I have ever seen! The company is known as Newton Running & the shoes are simply called Newtons. Why is it so different?

First of all, if we try to run barefooted, we naturally land on our forefoot. It’s a god-given natural instinct to allow us to absorb the shock of the impact with our entire leg before running shoes were invented. Most shoes we see on the market have a heel to forefoot ratio of about 2:1. Translated? The heel is a lot thicker & heavier than the front of the shoe, making forefoot running difficult & unnatural under the circumstances. Newtons are NOT designed for people who heel-strike. In fact, the heel is not designed to last very long if one lands on it all the time.

Secondly, gel-cushioning is so 80’s. More & more runners are abandoning the gel & looking for something more absorbing & will last longer. However, they are at a crossroad & don’t know where to go. Did I mention that there are hardly any shoes with gel in the forefoot anyway? Newtons have a few strips of cushioning lugs that reduce normal impacts of 20 G’s to about 12 G’s. In other words, we feel less impact & we run more naturally.

Thirdly, most shoes are designed to wear from the inside out. Translated? Your 4-year old Nike’s still look pretty cool on the outside although all the “bounciness” it used to have may have been lost quite a while ago. Newtons are designed to wear from the outside in meaning that the sole of the shoe may look its been to Irag & back, but the protective cushioning will last far longer.

I had the opportunity to run about 25k over 3 days in my Newtons while I was at the conference (on a treadmill in the gym of course) & when I was out in the desert road for a few days after the conference, I ran about 10 k in them. It felt great! The shoes makes contact with the ground a lot faster than my best Asics shoes & feels weightless!

I think about our relationship with God & the few parallels that comes to mind:

1) We are naturally designed to be worshipful. But the world has given us a life that is filled with distractions & false-gods, making worshipping God difficult. Christians are NOT designed to worship anything other than the Almighty. In fact, we won’t last very long if we continue to worship “idols” like worldliness.

2) More & more people are abandoning their old traditional Chinese beliefs & becoming atheist. They are at a crossroad & don’t know where to go. Christianity teaches us how to protect & cushion our hearts against the evil onslaught of Satan, reducing the hurts that come from sin from unbearable to a totally refreshing feeling when we repent!

3) The world teaches us to wear from the inside out; the first to go are our hearts, our moral principals, our integrity & our beliefs. Everything else on the outside can be plastered & maintained through cosmetics & plastic surgery. The Bible teaches us the “though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day”. (2 Corinthians 4:16)

God wants the last thing that goes out to be our hearts! Isn’t it what it’s all about? We don’t have to worry about the outside wearing out. Adam probably looked the way he was from age 60 till he dies at 930 years old. Or do we seriously think we can look like we’re in our twenties ALL the time?

I look forward to continually training & enjoy running. But I look forward more to serving God with a pure heart till the day I die. I am going to have many more pairs of running shoes (provided my body holds out) but in this life, I have only ONE heart. I have no intention of letting it wear out soon. What about you?

Look forward to your thoughts!

Love,

Wee Keong