Discipline for Dumbbells July 11, 2007
Posted by carpebanana in : Ramblings , 1 comment so farI don’t like discipline. I don’t like exercise or being careful to eat healthy. I’d rather do what I feel like.
Elisabeth Elliot helps me think about the importance of discipline in my life, and how it carries over into all parts of life:
I have just read Jean Nidetch’s book on the Weight Watchers, and while it is obvious that her basic theme (that people get fat because they eat) is hardly a world-shaking discovery, her method is one that made her a millionaire: get people to work at their problems together. Reducing doesn’t just happen. It isn’t a thing the majority succeed in doing all by themselves.She doesn’t let them make up their own diet as they go along–that’s what put the fat on them in the first place. She doesn’t suggest that losing weight is best done when you feel like it. She doesn’t even say that it works only if you are being “yourself.”In fact, I was reminded throughout the book of how many analogies there are between losing weight and practicing Christianity. There are rules to obey. You will to obey them. Some people insist that the devotional life is somehow purer or better if it is pursued only when we feel like it. Worship for some is thought to be an “experience” rather than an act. Losing weight is also an experience–there’s no doubt about that–in fact, the expression “being born again” occurs in the testimonies of those who have done it. But losing weight most certainly has to begin with an act.
It is an act of the will. You decide to do this and not to do that. You must arrange, prepare, and carefully carry out your plan. The combustion of those daily calories will happen without fail, but only when the conditions are properly set up.
My thinking here tends to run in rather shallow ruts. But today while doing my routine I suddenly was struck by a new question: What is the spiritual parallel of doing lying kickbacks carelessly and whacking yourself in the forehead with the dumbbell?