0 to 3 in 5 Days!

In one of John Ortberg's books, he describes the difference between "trying" and "training."  Trying is making an attempt to do something without any real intentionality.  For example, you and I could "try" to run a marathon (a race of 26 miles 380 yards), but most of us would run out of gas somewhere between miles 2-10.  Or we could "train" to run a marathon, a process that takes an intentional effort, with daily runs, increasing over time, and including intentional long runs of increasing distances.  Depending on the program. a person may have already run a marathon BEFORE the actual race.  The point is simple: if we want to accomplish anything of value in the spiritual or physical realms we must TRAIN.  I mentioned earlier in the week that I was "back on the road" again, that I'd started running again. I'm possibly in training for another marathon.  That means that I'm INTENTIONALLY increasing the mileage on an incremental basis.  Since I have trained for a marathon, and was in relatively good condition before taking the 4 month hiatus from running to build our house, I assumed that it would be easy to get the mileage back up to where it was last fall.  Well, I've gone from "0" not running at all, to "3" (miles) over the first 5 days.  My training program right now is NOT a marathon training program, just a gradual building up of mileage so I'll be ready to train for a marathon if I decide that's what I need to do.  I'm going to do an "LSD" run (runner's slang for Long Slow Day!) tomorrow of 5 miles, which to many folks seems like quite an accomplishment, but for a trained runner, it's just a warm up. 

What are you training for in life?  Do you have a spiritual "training" process in place?  What kind of training are you doing to take care of your health?  What about your training process for your relationships--family, friends, etc???  Remember, trying doesnt' accomplish much.  It takes training to succeed.  Do you have any friendships that used to be close, but just aren't healthy these days?  How intentional have you been about keeping them strong?  Some folks think that important matters like friendships and spiritual growth will happen "naturally," without any attention or intentionality.  Nothing could be farther from the truth.  All things in life "naturally" tend toward a state of higher order to a state of lower order, and a state of higher energy to a state of lower energy. (It's called the Law of Entropy.).  That means if it's important we must TRAIN rather than try to keep it strong and healthy.  Within a few weeks I'll be running 4-5 miles each day easily, and have LSD runs of 8-10 miles---if I keep training.  The same is true of everything in life.  With intentional training over a long time growth is a given!