There was a lamppost at the top of a hill.

It wasn’t grand or symbolic, just a plain old wooden post at the end of a quiet street near my house. But for weeks, and then months, it became the center of my discipline. My turnaround point. My finish line. My proof that I had done what I said I would do.

Every run started with the same goal: reach that lamppost. Touch it. Turn around. Make it home.

I didn’t love running. Not at first.

Especially not in the Alabama heat—thick, humid, relentless. But I ran anyway. Not because it felt good, but because I knew if I didn’t go right then, I probably wouldn’t go at all.

My workdays were full. I was in IT, overseeing systems for our company. It was demanding, and I enjoyed it, but it wore me out. By the time I pulled into the driveway each evening, I was tired. Not the kind of tired that makes you want to go for a run—the kind that makes you want to collapse on the couch and disappear into dinner, TV, and bed.

But instead, I walked in the door, said hello to everyone, pet the dog, changed into my running clothes, and walked right back outside. That rhythm—day after day, same time, same steps—was everything.

It didn’t matter if it was ninety-five degrees or if my body begged for a break. I had to go. Because I wasn’t just trying to lose weight anymore, I was building something. Something deeper. And to build it, I needed consistency.

At first, I stuck to a simple route: from my house to that lamppost and back. One mile out. One mile home. The hill leading up to it burned every time. Some days it felt like a mountain. But I’d push to the top, touch the post, and know: I didn’t quit.

That lamppost became more than a destination. It became a line in my day. A marker of effort. A quiet kind of altar where I laid down excuses and picked up a little more grit.

My family noticed.

My wife and kids knew I had just come home from work, but they gave me that space. They knew I needed it. They encouraged it. And when race days came—5Ks on early Saturday mornings—they were there. Cheering. Smiling. Making it fun. That meant everything.

But most of the time, it wasn’t about races. It was just me and the pavement. Day after day. One step at a time.

Over time, the run became more than exercise. It became a boundary, a line in the day between everything I had carried and everything I still hoped for. It was where I reset. Where I pushed through the tension of work and fatigue and stress. And in that rhythm, I started to feel something I hadn’t felt in a long time: control.

Not over everything. But over something.

The repetition shaped me.

Not just physically—though the weight was slowly coming off—but mentally, emotionally, spiritually. My energy improved. I started sleeping better. I felt lighter. More focused. Even a little more confident.

And I started noticing changes outside of running, too. I was more organized at work. More present at home. More grounded in my choices. What I ate. When I went to bed. How I prayed. It all started to line up.

The discipline I found on the road spilled into the rest of my life.

There’s a strength that comes from doing the hard thing when you don’t feel like it. A kind of steady muscle that builds when you say, I don’t want to, but I will.

That’s what running after work taught me. It taught me to build a life on follow-through. On rhythm. On showing up, especially when it’s not easy.

God didn’t meet me in fireworks or breakthroughs. He met me at the lamppost. In that quiet decision: to run up the hill, touch the post, and come home. To try again the next day. And the one after that.

That’s where the foundation was laid. Not in one big transformation, but in the rhythm of a thousand small choices.