Words That Have Changed My Life

Chad and I have had a string of varied discussions today. This is nothing unusual for us, who can discourse for 20 minutes on which is the best route to take across the courtyard to check the mail. However, we ran a race, attended a funeral, and went out to lunch all in the space of three hours this morning, which is NOT usual for us who like to do one thing and then take a break for talking about it.

So in the course of our conversations this morning, I mentioned two different verses that have stuck with me since I first heard them (or at least, since I first consciously registered them). And that led me to thinking that I'd like to blog about the words that stick with me. So, expect this to be an ongoing series as I randomly remember things.

"It never gets easier/It only gets easier if you do it."

These, as you may have noticed, are conflicting ideas, but they have both stuck with me. Why?

I was sitting in a womens Bible class about four years ago, and the teacher was talking about making a regular habit of praying/Bible reading/etc. She made the comment, "It's like exercise; it never gets easier." At which point alarms went off in my head & I drew a great big "?" on the page where I was taking notes. Incidentally, this class happened after I'd been solely a cyclist for over a year, so I knew better-- cycling had certainly gotten easier as I went along.

I didn't bother taking it up with the teacher, because I really didn't even know where to begin-- and even if I had done, it was already said & there was not much chance that we'd go back to the point at the next class. But I did discuss it with Chad & others over the course of a few weeks and arrived at the conclusion which I now hold on to: "It only gets easier if you do it."

So far, I've found this to be true in a lot of areas of life, especially in exercise. It takes work-- and lots of it-- to break bad habits and form good ones. But it doesn't get any easier if I give up. It doesn't get easier if I only half-heartedly try every few days or when I'm in the mood. It doesn't get easier from sitting around thinking about it. It does get easier if I do it.

Both halves of this thought have stayed with me, because the first half prompted me to think through the second half. I don't know how many times I've been in the middle of a run, wanting to give up, and the thought that comes to mind is, "This is the only way to make it easy. It only gets easier if I do it." And such is the way with many things-- they only get easier when practised. So, I will continue to practise.