Discipline

This morning, we were cozy in the cabin on Whidbey Island, and it was very dark as we were tucked back in the woods.  I rolled over around 7:00 and did not really want to crawl out of bed to go for a run quite yet, but Elizabeth and I had agreed that we would head out around 7:30 so I snuggled up for a few more minutes and then we found our running gear in the dark and headed out into the cold. 

Discipline is what got me out of bed this morning, and it's something that has kept me showing up again and again for early wake up calls for a lot of years with running.  

When I searched for discipline quotes in relation to running, so many inspirational images popped up like these below: 

The author of a post about discipline shared this memory about his college roommate: 

"I had many friends who absolutely loved to work out, which only shamed me more in light of my half-hearted attempts. My friend (and later college roommate), Chad, could work out for hours on end.  It appeared that he loved it all the time, which fueled his drive to work out more and more. This seemed so unattainable to me. I didn’t possess that same desire.  I remember him trying to encourage me to work out one day and me simply responding that I didn’t feel like working out.  What he said next has stayed with me ever since. He said, “You know, Graham, it is on the days that I don’t feel like working out, but choose to work out anyway, that I get stronger.”

It came as a surprise to me that Chad didn’t love working out all the time. It turns out his motivation wasn’t the act itself, but what it would eventually produce.  I now believe the more he worked out, the more it became part of his pattern of life. His pattern of life produced results. The discipline led to delight, and, conversely, his delight led to more discipline." 

He shares the following old adage: “At first the man makes the habit, but in the end the habit makes the man.”

This is simply to say that I am praying for you today, Hannah, that God would give you discipline that will lead to things you delight in and that those would lead to more discipline...