[To follow The Ewellogy, please click on Leave a Comment above, fill in your name and email, and check the box: Notify me of new posts by email. If your comment is, “Notify me,” it won’t post publicly. If you don’t start to receive the blog by email right away, please write to me at bob@ewell.com, and I will see that you get on the list.]

As June and I are getting over our respiratory infections, painful reality is setting in: no stamina! It doesn’t take long to lose our fitness, and there’s only one way to get it back: exercise!

I was just listening to Dallas Willard’s Divine Conspiracy, where he defined “discipline” as “…something in my power that I do to enable me to do what I cannot do by direct effort.” Today I can’t walk a mile in, say, 15 minutes, but if I disciplined myself to walk a bit faster every day and a bit longer, in time, I could.

The spiritual life is the same. We keep looking for shortcuts, but the scripture is clear:

Train yourself for godliness. (1 Timothy 4.7b, ESV)