My son Mark is a nationally ranked stair climber. These are the people who run up skyscrapers. Mark is one of four men in the world to have run up the Seattle Space Needle in under five minutes and one of three to have done it twice. He has won the Mile High Stadium race in Denver five years in a row (in a stadium race, they run up and down).

One of the reasons Mark is doing so well is that he trains. He has a schedule and sticks to it. For example, at least once/week he runs the Manitou Incline, a grueling one mile up railroad ties with a 2,000-foot elevation gain. Yesterday was his day to run it, and it was 15 degrees and snowing. Hence this post on FaceBook:

Many people would have changed their training schedule on a day like that! I would have. What excuses do we make for not doing what we have planned to do, whether it’s a spiritual or physical discipline or creating a holy moment?

…train yourself to be godly (1 Timothy 4.7, NIV)

If anyone, then, knows the good they ought to do and doesn’t do it, it is sin for them. (James 4.17, NIV)