Several years ago, a buddy of mine was telling me how much he was enjoying swimming each morning, and exclaimed, “So many people are going to the pool to get health; I like going to express it.”

What a great idea, that health is inherent in our being—something that comes from God. It’s a spiritual quality that’s expressed in strength and fitness. It’s integral to our nature, and can never fade away or need to be regained.

I was able to put this idea to the test one recent summer. For two years in a row, I worked with youth from a summer camp for Christian Scientists as the Christian Science practitioner on staff, for the first session. Many from camp participated in an annual “Four on the Fourth” road race (a popular four-mile race held on the Fourth of July). I was able to complete this race with a great sense of purpose and joy, but that’s not all there is to the story.

The first year I participated, I’d been running a few times a week leading up to the race, and felt confident I’d trained enough that I could not only keep up, but do more than that. My plan was to start about three quarters of the way back in the pack, and at the half-mile marker, I would double back to the last kid from camp. I would run a bit with this kid, share some encouragement and spiritual ideas about God and His creation, man (the generic term used in Christian Science for all God’s children, boy and girls, men and women), and then I would pick up my pace until I caught up with the next campers, do the same, and off to the next.

At each mile marker I would double back to the last kid, again share some more ideas, and off I would go to the next group, all the while praying to see the perfect child of God in everyone I passed. By the end of the race, I figured I had run six or seven miles instead of four, but that was no big deal to me since I was prepared.

The second year, however, I planned on doing the race the same way, but I hadn’t been running for at least half a year, and didn’t do any specific training. Now this may sound a bit foolish to anyone with a strictly physical sense of athletics, but I really wanted to focus on my deepening understanding of inherent health. It’s not like I was being negligent or willful. I simply went about my normal daily routine, which did include roaming around camp to different activities and sometimes participating a little, being present to claim the spiritual truth going on there right then for the kids.

I was praying to see that everyone involved in the run, including myself, had a spiritual basis to their strength, endurance, power, and agility.

The real inspiration came to me as a little bird whispering in my ear. No, I’m not kidding! It was from a real, little birdie that I got the answer to my prayers! A couple of days before the race I’d been sitting on the swing-chair down by the lakefront at camp when I noticed a little warbler flittering about in the pine boughs, and this thought came to me: Here is this tiny little bird, less than half a pound in weight, and what kind of training does it do? It flies over here and lights upon this or that, just going about its daily business of finding bugs to eat and singing its glorious little songs, and then one day, come late September or so, this little bird and its buddies just up and decide it’s time to fly a couple of thousand miles! They don’t “train.” It’s just what they do, it’s who they are, it’s simply their nature.

Well, I thought, isn’t it simply my nature to be able to express Love in whatever way is needed? I mean, that was what the race was about for me. It wasn’t about me running a seven-and-a-half-minute mile, or finishing in the top 100. My purpose for running the race was to care and nurture those dear campers who were out there running. That was my purpose, and loving was simply my “nature.” Therefore it seemed to me I should be able to run the race with as much ease and grace as that little warbler on its flight south!

In the days leading up to the race, whenever negative thoughts came saying that I was being willful or unwise, that I hadn’t had enough training, I tossed them out, replacing them with the ideas that I had a spiritual sense of freedom and strength. After all, doesn’t the Bible say, “Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty” (II Cor. 3:17). Well, I could never be outside the spirit of God if I was “created in His image and likeness” (Gen. 1:27).

A few days after this wonderful revelation, was race day. That morning I focused on the true purpose of my run and started off with joy. I ran as I planned, and was able to help all those kids and demonstrate a natural sense of health and well-being with absolute freedom, and with no ill effects following.

Now, I am not saying we should just take on any old task without preparing, but for me, that summer, I found the value in preparing and training in another, more meaningful way—metaphysically.

I’m not always able to do this perfectly, but from this experience, I know that with enough consecrated prayer, I can take on the most demanding situation free from harm and with an abundance of grace.