My husband and I recently started going to the gym on a regular basis. For years I have worked out at home where I have a modest collection of workout equipment. This is my first foray into the gym, and I find it quite intimidating. But in the past few weeks I have seen improvement in my level of fitness, the kind of improvement that consistency and showing up earns.
There are some gym skills I want to master, and I think it’s going to take me a long time to build the strength and abilities I want. I haven’t even touched some of the machines at the gym yet, so it will be a long journey. One workout at a time.
So how does this tie in with my faith? It’s the showing up part. One of the things I think all of us who love Jesus need to chase after is intimacy with Him, really knowing Him. And the only way to do that is to make the practice of communing with Him an everyday event.
But maybe when you approach Jesus you feel like me at the gym, kinda outta place. Perhaps you pick up the Bible and it just feels like a big book that you don’t understand. You know some people who seem to really know how to pray and who understand the Bible better and appear to be so much closer to the Lord, but gosh, it looks like a lot of effort!
Well, my advice to you is: Just start.
Some of the most renowned personal trainers say that the best thing you can do for yourself at the gym is to master five or six basic exercises and learn to do those moves well and with greater resistance on a progressive basis. Ignore all the trends and hype and focus on mastering the basics. And there could not be more effective advice for your faith walk as well.
My practice is simple. Every morning, I walk outside with my cup of coffee and sit in my not-so-beautiful yard. I put down my phone and read from the Bible or a devotional book. I pray for a few minutes, I sit quietly. Sometimes I literally spend less than 10 minutes there, other days I linger. I start my day getting to know Jesus a little better, surrendering my thoughts to Him, in all their mumble jumble. In this quietness our closeness grows.