Reward given to my beloved wife who completed 100 miles: Buckle

Sunday afternoon, November 3, 2024.

My beloved wife Jane finally finished the 100 miles (163 km) ultra marathon in 28 hours and 19 minutes.  And her reward was a buckle.  A “buckle” is a decorative piece that fastens a belt and is an essential part of a belt (Internet).  It is said that buckles were originally used by soldiers to fasten their helmets and armor before going into battle (Internet).  When I looked at the picture of the buckle my wife received as a reward, it said “100 MILES ENDURANCE RUN.”  About 2 years ago on October 27, 2022, when my wife ran her first 100 miles (trail run), I think she finished in 27 hours and 20 minutes, and came home with a buckle similar to this one.  I laughed and said to her, ‘Wow, you finished 100 miles and this is all you get for it?’ Haha.  But when my wife received the buckle as a reward for completing the 100-mile race and took a picture of it and sent it to me via KakaoTalk, I didn’t think, ‘Is that just a buckle?’ and I didn’t even laugh.  Rather, when I saw the picture of the buckle that my wife sent me, I thought of Ephesians 6:14: “Stand firm then, having buckled your waist with truth, and having put on the breastplate of righteousness.”  And I wanted to think about the “buckle” that my wife received as a reward and “the belt of truth” (v. 14), one of the detailed items of “the full armor of God” (v. 13) that the Bible tells us about.  So I’m writing this as it comes to mind:

1.    After the Apostle Paul said, “Therefore take up the full armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and after you have done all, to stand” (Ephesians 6:13), he went on to list the specific items of the full armor of God, and the first one he mentioned was “the belt of truth” (v. 14).  As I meditated on that fact, I realized that about two weeks ago, when our church pastor and his colleague came to our house, opened the second-floor ceiling door, took out the broken old air conditioner, and put the new one in.  Since it was too much for the two of them, I put my belt around my shorts and tightened it a little to help.  The reason is that I hurt my back when I was in college and have suffered from it my whole life (that is why I have been going to the YMCA and working out for about 20 years), so I did it to prevent my back from getting hurt.  From that perspective, when I lift heavy loads, the most important thing for me is my belt.  Likewise, in order to win the spiritual battle against the enemy devil in this evil day and “when you have done all,” I am taught to “stand firm and put on the belt of truth” according to the Bible (vv. 13-14).
2.    I saw on an internet site that ‘Wearing the belt of truth means belonging to the truth.  It means uniting with the truth.  It means becoming one with the truth.  It means relying on the truth.  It means being swollen with the truth.  It means clinging tightly to the truth and never letting go’ (Internet).  Here, I did not know what “swell” meant, so I looked it up on the internet and found that the Hebrew word for “swell” is “hazaq” which means “to hold tightly and cling tightly.”  The Revised Korean Standard Version of the Bible translates it as “to rely on” (Deuteronomy 11:22; 13:4; 30:20) and “to follow” (1 Kings 9:9) (Internet).  Interesting.  In particular, I know that in my favorite book of the Bible, Jonah, the Bible says that Jonah’s father’s name was “Amittai” (Jonah 1:1; cf. 2 Kings 14:25), and I only knew that it meant “my truth, my faithfulness.”  But this time, I learned for the first time that the name also means ‘I am a person who belongs to the truth.’  And I learned that putting on the belt of truth means becoming a person who belongs to the truth (Internet).
3.    When I think of my beloved wife Jane whom I love with the Lord’s love and whom I want to love more and more, there is a word of the Lord that the Lord gave me.  That word is John 8:32: “And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.”  When I pray to Heavenly Father for Jane, I pray that the Lord will continue to teach her the truth so that she will know the truth more and more.  I pray that both I and my wife will become Christians who belong to the truth.  So I pray that the truth will break all the invisible chains that have bound my wife and my heart, mind, and emotions, and set us free so that we can become people like eagles that soar on wings across the sky (Reference: Isaiah 40:31 – “But those who wait for the LORD will renew their strength; they will mount up with wings like eagles; they will run and not get tired, they will walk and not faint”).