Disciplines of Joy

I love to work out. I really do. But lately I've been hard pressed even to do the bench press (my favorite exercise). Why? I've fallen out of the routine. So today, because I have tons of stuff to do, I'm probably not going to make it to the gym. Tomorrow, I have tons of stuff to do, including finalizing my sermon for Sunday, so I might not make it then. And next week, guess what? Tons of stuff. There's always tons of stuff to do and I don't even have kids, yet. I'm not complaining how busy I am, by the way. I have a point, I think.

My lax gym attendance began when I took a week off for Amy's spring break/vacation to St. Augustine. From that point on, it has been harder to get back into it.

While routine simply for the sake of routine kills intimacy and delight, skipping that routine can really make it extremely hard for one to ever get back to doing what you love. For the last 6 years or so, the only reason I took time off from working out was due to either shoulder or back injury. That's it. I couldn't fathom how people could just stop going altogether.

But now I see. They were always busy, but working out was simply part of their busy schedule.
They skipped once, they skipped twice, and so on and so forth. Each time they skipped, it became easier to skip.

I think the same thing goes for any spiritual discipline. Once I get out of reading God's Word, its hard to get back into the pattern. I assume the same thing goes for people who stop going to church; they get out of the routine, and the more they don't go, the easier it becomes to not go in the future.

The weird thing is that I love working out when I get to the gym. Like church, I love seeing people there and find great joy in it. And I forfeit that joy by NOT GOING. So in order to get that joy and delight back (our highest motivation), I have to put important activities 'on my calendar.' While we may find it hard at first to put these disciplines back on our calendars, we are simply, though intentionally, exposing ourselves to Jesus: "thy lovely source of true delight." When we are confronted with continuing schedules devoid of corporate worship, private devotion, family prayer, time with spouse, let us be motivated by the joy that comes WHEN we get there instead of passively waiting for it to come to us.