Easy Street.

This last half of this winter has been tough trying to train, especially running outside.  Wet, cold, ice, dark in the morning and dark after work, snow, all conspires against my inner will to get up, get out, and get going.  And now with the advent of spring comes the instability of the weather.  It was supposed to be sunny and upper 50’s today so I planned my run for late in the afternoon.  It should have been a nice run so I packed up shorts and a light shirt to change into to run home in.  Right!  Cloudy, windy out of the northwest, cold in the lower 40’s and I’m not dressed in the right clothes.  But, there is no option, to get home I have to shoulder the pack and start out.  How easy it would have been to call up and have my wife come and pick me up.  “It’s too cold, and I just don’t feel like it”, and I could have ridden home in a nice warm car.

It is tempting to take the easy way out.  How many times in the midst of a run or workout have you just thought about giving up for the day.  Just stop, why put yourself through this?  Your tired, worn out, sore muscles, lungs hurting, and it would all be over in two seconds if you just quit!  Or, maybe we decide to cheat on form by not completing a true rep.  And it’s not just that way in fitness, but in everyday life as well.  Work?  Take the easy way out, no one will know.  School work?  The computer and internet can do it for me.  Personal relationships?  Hello Facebook.  With remotes, cell phones, remote start on our cars, internet connected home thermostats, Wikipedia, and for almost everything “there’s an app for that”, we can get lazy and take the easy way out of almost any chore we are faced with.  Not that it is all bad, but if we are not careful it will be terribly tempting to take the easy way out and miss out on real personal development.

That’s where mental toughness comes in.  I will do this!  I refuse to cheat myself!  No matter what the difficulty, or how uncomfortable the circumstances, find a way to complete the task at hand.  The rewards come in time as we improve, get stronger, develop more stamina.  Facing obstacles and finding our way over or through them and realizing success builds our mental toughness.  The next time we are faced with that obstacle we already know we can get through it. CrossFitter’s have a saying for it, “embrace the suck”.  Yes, it hurts, and you can’t wait for it to end but you endure because you know you’ll be stronger because of it.   Cyclers also have a phrase, “it’s just a hill, get over it”.

James talks about spiritual mental toughness in James 1:2.  James says to “count it pure joy” when we face trials of all kinds because our testing “develops perseverance”.  With the help of the Holy Spirit in our lives, as we live in close relationship to Jesus, we develop perseverance, patience; if you will, spiritual mental toughness.  Standing in obedience now makes standing easier the next time.  It works both ways.  Giving in now, makes giving in easier next time.  So don’t live on easy street.  Do the hard things, physically and spiritually.  Don’t be afraid to wrestle with the hard issues of life spiritually like being kind to enemies, prejudices, societal ills.  Is it hard?  Yes.  Comfortable? Not usually.  But when it’s over we will be better, stronger, spiritually.