The Status Quo is Impossible

Posted by Jimi Williams on Sep 6, 2010 | 1 comment

 Last week, as I was beginning my daily workout ofrunning 3 miles on the treadmill, an interesting thought occurred to me. I’ve been running 3 miles a day for over a year and half. When I first started running again, it felt like my body was falling apart. Everything hurt and I could feel every step all the way to my head. But after a few weeks, I noticed that the running was becoming easier. Besides becoming lighter in weight, my body was adjusting to the stress.

I have continued my 40 minute 3 mile workout ever since. After a year and half, I would have thought that the routine would become much easier. But that’s not the case. The workout is still as hard as it was after only 3 months.

Why?

I’m sure there’s a physiological reason for this, but my thought is that it’s really hard to maintain the status quo. The only way that the 3 mile run is going to get easier is to push myself to run 4 then 5 miles. Or challenge myself with a different workout that forces me to use different muscle groups.

There’s a spiritual lesson here. Paul said to “run (the race) in such a way as to get the prize”. Whenever we decide to coast spiritually, to be satisfied with where we are, we will begin to slip. The only way to keep our faith growing is to accept greater challenges, to trust God more, to become more like Christ. 

Becoming satisfied with our spiritual maturity only proves our spiritual immaturity.