Exercise and Exercises

First, a quick rundown:

-I survived finals without a single meltdown. Progress!
-I've gotten four of my five grades back so far and am pretty happy with them. The fifth won't come in for another month at least because that's just how my professor works, and my perfectionist, OCD self is slowly coming to terms with that.
-We went to Texas for 10 days over Christmas and it was wonderful. We saw almost all of our family and our closest friends. We even saw Les Mis with my college roommates and saw one of Jeff's friends one last time before she leaves for Argentina for 3 months (buena suerte, Kendall!). Oh, and my nephew is adorable and quite possibly the happiest baby ever. Basically, good times all around.

Now, my actual thought for today:

New Years has come and gone, and resolutions have been made (and broken, I'm sure). One of the most popular resolutions is to get in shape, right? And, at least within the Church, another of the most popular is to be more dedicated with spiritual practices. We go out and buy our gym pass or that perfect new devotional, or we decide that this year we'll try yoga or lectio divina, and we go merrily on our way. For about a week.

Then we miss a day. But it's cool, it was just one day, and we rally.

Then we miss a couple more.

Then a few more.

Then the guilt sets in.

Then we think, ahhh, forget it. I'll try again next year.

And then I remember one of the best pieces of advice about spiritual exercises that I've gotten in 23 years: God doesn't care if you miss a day or if you miss a week. God just cares that you're trying.

Now, that's pretty simplified and (as most advice can) can be used to write off an awful lot of slacking, but the sentiment holds true. We're not perfect, and very few of us have the discipline to hold to a regimen of anything for the rest of our lives, whether it's physical or spiritual. But what matters is that we keep trying. We keep going back. The thing about strict workout plans or read-your-Bible-in-a-year plans is that while they can be really useful they can also make us feel so guilty when we miss a day that we quit entirely.

No, several weeks of inactivity followed by one day of exercise isn't a very good pattern for losing weight, but that doesn't mean that getting on the treadmill today without a clearly defined workout plan is a bad idea. You'll still get that benefit today, and having done it today will make it easier to do tomorrow. Reading your Bible or journaling or praying today won't make you an automatic saint, but it'll make you think about your faith a little more in your day-to-day life, and- who knows!- maybe you'll think about how your faith ought to affect your actions when you get put in a stressful situation tomorrow. 

In both our physical exercises and our spiritual exercises, we shouldn't let long periods of idleness prevent us from taking a small step today. That small, unguided step might be the beginning of a habit that we can keep up, one built on grace rather than guilt.

And maybe that applies to blogging, too.