A Map and A Mirror – Part 4
December 22, 2008
Dear Friends,
Our fourth principle on our successful spiritual journey is—
4. Take little steps. Take things one day at a time.
In the middle of August, I decided I was going to lose 60 pounds. For me, this was no easy task. I'm not sure it is "easy" for anyone, but it certainly hasn't been so for me. I have done fad diets like the Atkins Diet (made my heart start missing beats). I have exercised including running in a couple of marathons. Still I found myself continuing to put on weight. Part of my problem is that I desired instant results. It took me 30 years to put on the weight but I want it off in a matter of weeks.
The experts will say that a healthy diet will have weight loss of one or two pounds per week and will be a balance of healthy eating coupled with exercise. That philosophy doesn't sell as many books as some of the fad diets do or the latest exercise gismo, but the "marathon" approach to dieting works better than the "sprint" approach. If we set our goal, stay disciplined and do it pound by pound, inch by inch, we can do it.
Having run a few marathons, I can tell you the thought of running 26.2 miles can be daunting. You think to yourself when you begin training, "how on earth will I ever run that far?" So you start your training with short runs of a mile or two and gradually build up day by day. Before too long you realize that you can run ten miles, and then twelve and then eighteen. Finally, after months of preparation and countless number of individual steps, you strike out on a 26.2 mile run. Some people do it in a little over two hours. People like me are closer to five hours. Regardless, each of us did it by picking our feet up and moving them forward one step at a time in sequence. You run mile 1, then mile 2, then mile 3, then mile 4-well, you get the picture.
God has only given us one day – today. I don't mean that He won't give us tomorrow, but for now, all we have is today. Jesus said "Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own." (Matt. 6:34). Jesus wasn't declaring that all planning and preparation is wrong. Quite to the contrary, Jesus' parables are full of allusions to planning and preparation. Jesus was speaking against worry, however, it also tells us to live in the moment, not always be looking off into the future. If we are always looking to the past or future, how can we ever live in the present? For our purposes of finishing our race, Matthew 6:34 tells us to just do what we can do today as far as our goal is concerned. If one of our goals is a college education, it is going to take years to do it. You can't get a college education in a day. At the same time, you can study for your college history or math class today and do your best at it. If you do that every day, in the course of time with God's blessing, you will meet your goal.
We are a society that lives for "instant gratification." We want as much gratification with as little effort as is humanly possible. Because of this, we have ended up with a disposable society. We have disposable napkins, disposable cups, disposable friends, disposable morals, disposable children, disposable marriages and a disposable God. The great tragedy for our society is that anything worth anything has lasting value. The fact that we discard so many things of value because of the fickleness of our character has more to say about us than those things which we so casually discard. We, as a society, suffer from MDD ("morality deficit disorder"). This is nowhere more apparent than in our unwillingness to stay the course and exercise self-discipline on a day to day basis.
By the way, since August 11 of this year (about 20 weeks ago), I have lost 30 pounds. I am half way to my goal. It hasn't been easy, but it hasn't been too terribly hard either. Losing 60 pounds is daunting. Losing just one pound this week isn't.
Have a great week,
The next post of the Time and Chance survey is on the blog. They can be viewed here.
