Hard Work Pays Off

1 Timothy 4:8 - "Rather train yourself for godliness; for while bodily training is of some value, godliness is of value in every way, as it holds promise for the present life and also for the life to come."

This last semester, I've lost almost 25 pounds! Allow me to show off a little bit. I weigh myself every time I go to the CCRB and I record it when I get home, so here's a graph of my weight this last year.

It all started a few months ago when Renjay and I decided to get up and to run and work out together, and we got up nearly every morning at around 9 to exercise. The first two weeks we ran, I lost around ten pounds, and keeping up the exercising, God's graciously "taketh away" what he had previously given to me (LOTS OF FAT). Not only have I lost weight, God's been working in my life through different spiritual disciplines that He's helped me keep recently.
Last year I started living a significantly more spiritually disciplined life, and this semester God continued to work through these spiritual disciplines to continue to transform my life. The Bible (Paul, especially) parallels life with running a race, and there are numerous little lessons and anecdotes that I've learned from exercising this semester, but there are two lessons about spiritual disciplines that I've gained that I want to focus on.

Running is hard, and when I run, especially when keeping a good pace, I find myself having to battle the urge to stop and to take a break. I need to repeat to myself "I can do it, I can do it" to battle the "I can't do it, I can't do it" that my body wants me to hear. A lot of running is mental, so running is often about putting your mind over your body and just taking steps when your body doesn't want to anymore. Running often hurts, but afterwards, I usually think one of the two following thoughts: I either think "Wow, that run wasn't actually not too bad..." or "Man, I'm hurting right now, but it was a great workout, so the pain was worth it."

1) The pain isn't actually as bad as I thought it was.

Sometimes after running, I finish feeling pretty good. I may be breathing heavily and sweating profusely, but I may feel great despite really needing to mentally struggle through much of the run to convince myself to keep going. I realize that the pain I felt when running really wasn't that bad, and that I just needed to put mind over body and just run. Similarly, I really believe that after keeping a spiritual discipline for a long time, we will look back and realize how small the sacrifice we made is, even if it felt really big and hard at the time. Actually living a disciplined life has given me a little more perspective on life, recognizing the minuteness of the sacrifices I make to keep the spiritual disciplines. For example, it may hurt a little bit now to commit to sleeping early and getting up earlier than we needed to do quiet times, but in the long run, it really is quite a small sacrifice. I think that part of the purpose of keeping these spiritual disciplines is to prepare us for when God calls us to something bigger and even more challenging. If we can't honor God by obeying him in the small, how can we expect to be obey him in the big?

Luke 16:10 - "One who is faithful in a very little is also faithful in much, and one who is dishonest in a very little is also dishonest in much."

Another way to think about it is that as we mature, many of the problems and challenges we face in the past all of a sudden seem so trivial. You know how you look back to your middle and high school years and remember the "big" struggles and hardships that you went through and you realize how silly it all was? Similarly, I'm at the point where I look back at when I struggled a lot with keeping quiet times and reading Scripture and I don't understand why I had such a difficult time just opening my Bible every day. I hope that someday I'll be able to look back and wonder about the days (which would be now) when I wasn't able to sit down an intercede for and hour straight or fast for an entire day.

2) The reward is worth the pain.

Often times, trials that we face and pain that we suffer is very real and can't be downplayed as some other spiritual disciplines, but we know that God always works all things for the good of those who love him and there is something that God wants to accomplish in our lives, whether in this life or for eternity.

Sometimes, we can see the fruit of our suffering in the present life. We often see that from self-discipline and God-discipline, the fruit of greater Christ-likeness in holiness, perseverance, and righteousness begin to be more evident. We see transformation all the way from the inner depths of our heart to the outward behavior we display.

James 1:2-4 - "Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.

Hebrews 12:11 - "For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it."

The suffering we go through is also preparing us for eternity, as we begin to develop now what we are going to experience forever. In much of our discipline and suffering, we are storing up for ourselves treasures in heaven, and even though I'm not sure what exactly that looks like, the Bible says that God will reward each according to what he has done. Also, because of the glory and the greatness of what we will experience in eternity with Jesus, all that we experience now, both the joy and the pain - will pale, comparison to the eternal life that is ahead of us. This hope for the future is what kept Paul going, despite being flogged, stoned, and almost killed multiple times.

2 Corinthians 4:17 - "For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison."

Not only that, this hope for the future is also what kept Jesus going! Jesus looked to the future, to "the joy set before him", so that he was able to endure the cross for us. The joy that Jesus looked forward to is the same joy that we can look forward to - a life where God's people are again in perfect relationship with God!

Hebrews 12:2 - "Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God."

Life is hard. Life hurts sometimes. But one day, because we know Jesus, we're going to be able to look back at all the pain and the suffering and the hurt that we've gone through and say the same things I said after running. For some disciplines and sacrifices in life we can say that the pain wasn't as bad as previously imagined, and for other suffering and trials, we can see that the reward of "an eternal weight of glory" is worth it all. Let us remember the reward that we have in Christ!