You Can Still Walk This

Physically

When I first started walking I had no real plan. I was already on a weight loss journey. Ok, who am I fooling? I have been on that journey for over twenty years. A more accurate statement would be: I had recently started another weight loss journey and had decided this time I would throw out all the lose-weight quick fads that appealed to my impatience. Instead, I decided I would do it the tried-and-true way that always worked--eat less, move more.

In the six months prior to the quarantine, I had begun to eat less, however I was struggling quite a bit with the move more. All the excess weight I had gained over the years made moving more hard and painful. This of course did not motivate me to do it as often as I needed to see results. As a lot of folks do, I started with the gym. The first day I went in super ready and excited. I tried everything, then of course that next day I could barely walk. It took me a while, but I finally got my gym routine together and had just added walking to the mix when our state went on a mandatory stay-at-home order. All non-essential services shut down for three months and gyms would be shut down even longer.

So, I started walking--I just started. I knew I needed to do something or I would start gaining weight again; I had already managed to lose and keep off twenty pounds. I had come too far to go backwards. In the beginning walking was the plan. I didn't plan how long or how fast, I just planned that I would walk, every day, until I got tired, and the next day I would do it again. As the days passed, the plan developed, and the longer I walked the more planning became necessary. But at the start, I knew I just needed to make it a daily habit. So, I walked.

Spiritually

Our Christian walk is similar. In the beginning it can look overwhelming. There is so much to learn and so much to unlearn. The tendency when we first become a believer is to do one of two things. We either look around the spiritual gym we call church and decide to try everything everyone else is doing all at once instead of concentrating on our individual spiritual walk. This usually leads to burn out and us becoming less and less likely to continue because it all seems like too much work. Or we look around the spiritual gym we call church and get overwhelmed with the process and freeze; we decide before even trying, that it's too much and never really start spiritually walking.

The key is to just start. All the excess baggage we have picked up over the years makes it seem hard and painful to walk this Christian walk, but everyone has to start somewhere. Accepting Christ as our Lord and Savior is so much more than just a confession with our mouth. It is believing in our hearts, which should definitely show up in a walk of faith. And to start that walk of faith you need to just start praying, just start reading the bible, just start praising, just start worshipping, just start believing...JUST START. Don't worry about how long or how fast, just create the habit. Make up in your mind to do it today, and then intend to do it tomorrow, and the next day and the next day. Don't get caught up in times, lengths, schedules, just start and when you finish today, start again tomorrow.