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Good athletes make it all seem so easy: precision, coordination, grace, and strength. I get the feeling sometimes, when I'm watching the Olympics, that Brian Boitano could go through his program in his sleep and never even twitch an eye!

Yet it isn't really like that. Four good minutes out on the ice requires at least four thousand good hours of practice, practice, and more practice.

One of the great Olympic runners of the past was Paavo Nurmi. They called him the "Flying Finn." During the 1924 Olympics at Paris Nurmi ran seven races in just six days! On one of those days Nurmi took the gold in both the 1,500-meter event and in the 5,000-meter race, and he did it in the space of less than an hour and a half! Can you imagine it?

The story gets better. That night, when many of the athletes took the ten-kilometer bus ride from the Olympic village at Colombes into Paris for a time of celebration, they saw Paavo Nurmi on the road, training for his next event! That's what made the Flying Finn a legend. He knew what it took to make his body strong, what it took to make his feet swift, what it took to make his legs reach, and he aimed for the gold in hours and days and months of steady practice. People saw him from the stands and marveled at what he could do in a few minutes on the cinder track. They weren't with him, however, on the hillsides of Finland where he truly won the race.

It takes discipline and training to win the race. That's what Paul says about the Christian life as well. It requires effort and practice. In fact, great leaders in the church have spelled out, over the ages, what the disciplines of the church are all about. The classic "spiritual disciplines" come in three varieties. There are the "inward" disciplines of meditation, prayer, fasting, and study that help us connect spiritually with God and keep an eye on the barometer of our souls.

The "outward" disciplines of simplicity, solitude, submission, and service put us in a proper attitude toward others and toward the things of life around us. In the "corporate" disciplines (confession, worship, guidance, and celebration) we learn to be and become the Body of Christ.

Of course, all of these things sound great when I list them in a few sentences. Yet they are not easy to accomplish. In fact, no one ever "accomplishes" them. They are goals toward which we reach, and exercises that require our constant attention.

Paul's teaching in 1 Corinthians 9 is all about that. Exercise is tough. Running a race requires effort. Staying in shape takes a great deal of discipline.

Exercising The Whole Person

For one thing, this kind of training requires our bodies as well as our minds. In the church we are often better at mind games than we are at body life.

Every now and then I get a telephone call from a woman several states distant. She wants to talk theology with me, and her questions are good ones: "What does the church believe about the eternal decrees of God?" "Why does God listen to some prayers and not to others?" "What is the truest translation of the Bible?"

We talk for hours, sometimes, about these matters. Yet I usually remain somewhat suspicious about her calls because I don't know what she is up to. Often, after we have talked for a while, I will begin to ask a few personal questions about what is taking place in her life. One time she was experimenting with illegal drugs. Another time she admitted that she was carrying on an extramarital relationship. On a third occasion she was at odds with her in-laws, and the accusations were piling high.

Each time she tries to cover up these nasty situations with pious talk of theology. She believes that if she knows the right answers she is a "good Christian." But she does not want me or anyone else to challenge the activities of her life. Leave me alone! Don't ask me to change my habits! Don't tell me to stop my flirting or my substance abuse! Don't tell me to take the first step in reaching out to my husband's family!

We all do it, don't we?

Robert McCracken, a great preacher of an earlier generation, told of a young man who came to him time and again, always with a new theological problem. He couldn't believe in the virgin birth of Jesus. He had difficulty with substitutionary atonement. He wasn't sure which denomination was best.

Each time McCracken would explain what the Bible and the Church said, and the young man would leave, supposedly having had his "problem" solved. Yet before long he would be back again with a new "problem."

One day McCracken said to him, rather casually, "Well, what do you think about the Ten Commandments?"

Suddenly the young man jumped to his feet, anger blazing in his face, and shouted, "You leave my life alone! You have no right to ask me how I live! That's my business, and no one's else!" He stormed out and never came back.

He was playing a mind game with his faith, never letting it actually change the behaviors of his body.

It is no accident that Paul talks about bodily exercise and spiritual exercise in the same breath. You cannot have the latter without the former. Our bodies are the extension of our souls, and when we try to separate them, being Christian in our minds but not in our actions, we lose the substance of our faith.

Someone has written about the failure of the Reformation in that light. The Protestant churches did away with so many of the trappings of the Medieval Church, he said -- kneeling benches, confessionals, indulgences -- yet often in giving up the external acts of piety Protestants have also given up internal disciplines of faith to which these were connected.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge, the English poet, was also considered to be a masterful preacher. He loved to move people's emotions and sway their hearts with the simple teachings of Jesus. He wanted, however, his Christianity to be free and easy, and would not pray with moving lips or on bended knee. These, he said, smacked of formalism, ritual, and a dead traditionalism. Instead, he wrote, he prayed internally, not externally. He "composed his spirit to love," as he put it, and indulged himself in "a sense of supplication."

Truly, though, what he meant by those phrases was that he would only do something if he felt like it, or if circumstances bent his heart to some rapturous emotion or experience of spiritual things. In fact, he was actually rather lazy about his practices of Christian piety.

Ultimately this was true in the details of his life. He never developed the discipline to stay away from opium. He never developed the strength of character to remain faithful to his wife. He couldn't be bothered with the discipline of raising his children.

It is fine to have an inner "spirit of love," but such a heart needs to have a body that will act it out. "Show me your faith by your actions," says the apostle James, "or don't talk to me about your faith at all!"

A little boy on a television interview program put it so well. He was asked if he had any pets. "I used to have some goldfish," he said, "but one day some softener got into the water and they softened to death!" Maybe that picture applies to some of us who have never coupled the discipline of strong faith with the discipline of obedient bodies, and have become softened to death in the process.

Back To Basics

There is a second reason why Paul's teaching is hard, and that's because it takes us back to the beginning. As we mature in life we often put away the things of the past. We don't have to sit down with our spelling books again every time we start to read. We don't open the Operator's Manual each time we get into our cars to drive. Nor do we keep rereading the recipe every time we want to make pancakes for breakfast. What we have learned once, we don't need to keep learning all over again.

Yet that is not the case in every aspect of our lives. Just because we read the Bible once, years ago, does not mean that we know it and live its message. Nor is it true that having once served in some volunteer ministry we have "done our time," and now no longer need to stretch ourselves in that direction.

Actually, what every great athlete knows is that what makes you great keeps you great. You cannot drift toward the goal without maintaining the fundamentals of the sport. No matter how good your start, it needs to be coupled with practice, practice, practice.

This is true in our spiritual developments as well. Recently I heard of a couple in the nineteenth century who began a great ministry of orphanages across Europe. Their ministry began when they had a baby, and they wondered what life would be like for their child if they should meet a sudden and untimely death. Out of that concern they set up orphanages to provide good homes for those whose parents had died.

The work consumed them. They organized societies and raised funds and held public meetings. Every night there was a new group at their home praying and planning.

But one evening all of their efforts were shaken to the core. They had sent their eight-year-old daughter up to bed. She could look after herself now, while they got back to the business of the orphanages. A short while later, however, their meeting was interrupted by her sobbing on the stairs. When they looked up and asked her what was wrong she said hotly, "Sometimes I wish I was an orphan! Then you would care about me!"

Do you catch the point? Do you understand what Paul means when he writes, "What if I preach to others, and then find myself disqualified?"

Get back to the basics! Get back to the fundamentals! Get back to your first love, and forget all this nonsense about a sophisticated faith!

What was it that drew you to Christ? What did you want to do with your faith when you first found it? How did you live in those early days of your relationship with God? Go back and find it all again!

Training brings me back to the basics, says Paul. Then I remember who I am and what my Christian faith is all about.

Training For A Purpose

There is a third reason why Paul's teaching is hard. Sometimes we make the discipline an end in itself. The church has always struggled with Phariseeism, and a blind devotion to duty or a rigid exercise of Christian discipline that becomes its own reward.

Will Durant, in his great story of civilization, tells of some of the strange things that people have done in the name of Christian virtue. Macarius of Alexandria, for instance, made his spiritual exercises a kind of prideful competition. If he heard of someone who ate no cooked food during Lent he would himself go for seven years without cooked food. If someone prayed all night, Macarius would frantically stay awake for twenty nights, trying to outdo the other in piety.

Pachomius went for fifty years without lying down to sleep, according to Durant. Others carried around heavy weights, or spoke proudly of how many years they had gone without seeing the face of a woman.

Most fanatic of all, however, was Simeon Stylites. He lived in the first half of the fifth century and wanted to stand over all others in holy living. For that reason he built a column seven feet high in the Syrian desert and lived on top of it. Later, realizing that he was not yet good enough, he built another tower seventy feet high. He stayed on the top of that tower for thirty years, scorched by the sun, washed by the rain, and blasted by the wind. Someone would crawl up a ladder to bring him food.

Simeon would tie himself with a rope to keep from falling off his precarious perch. When his flesh under the rope began to rot and worms crawled in it, Simeon felt better for his devotion. In fact, if a worm would fall from his flesh he would pick it up, put it back into the wound, and say to it, "Eat what God has given you!"

Sounds strange, doesn't it?

So it should! But what of the acts of piety that sometimes become ends in themselves for us? A certain form of worship? A certain code of behavior? A certain tradition of ritual?

It can be for us like the dieter who is always dieting, never for a specific weight loss, but always because it has become a way of life. It can be for us like the muscle-builder whose muscles become an end in themselves. So what? Who cares?

One of the classics of the Christian faith is Charles Sheldon's novel In His Steps. After the Bible it is the most-translated Christian book in the world. The story begins with a tragedy and ends with a pervasive sense of holiness. Throughout the book a pastor leads his congregation in always asking the question, "What would Jesus do in this situation?"

It is a good question to ask, of course. If we follow the Master we should try to the think like the Master. Yet there is a flaw in the book. Piety is reduced to making the right choice and doing the right thing in each instance of life, but it never gets any bigger than that. It never expands into some broader outlook of Christian vision or Kingdom hope. It is always reactive rather than formative. Asking the question, "What would Jesus do?" is important. But even more important are the questions, "Where are we going? What is God's desire for this world? How will it all come out in the end?"

Those questions carry with them a grander sense of purpose. They go beyond holiness for the sake of holiness, to holiness that reaches for the coming of the Kingdom of God.

These are the hard dimensions of Paul's teaching about exercising our faith in the gymnasium of God. He calls us to use the whole of our beings in our religion and not just play mind games of theology. He takes us back to the beginning of our faith and calls on us to do our fundamental exercises over and over again. And, Paul cautions us against our tendency to allow the exercises of faith to become an end in and of themselves.

Making The Most Of Our Exercises Of Faith

That should not put us off, however, because there is another side to the disciplines of faith as well. Paul's picture helps us understand how we grow best in our religion.

Now, the word "discipline" often carries with it negative connotations for us. I remember reading, some years ago, the Rule of Saint Benedict. At one point in the Rule the focus is on the manner of conduct that ought to characterize a monk visiting at a neighboring monastery. When he comes, says Benedict, receive him with kindness. If he finds fault with what you are doing, listen to him carefully, for it might be that God has brought him to you for this very purpose.

But if he proves gossipy, and if he becomes nasty or disruptive, tell him to leave. Then, "if he does not go," says Benedict, "let two stout monks, in the name of God, explain it to him!"

Can you see, with me, those two big "bouncer" monks giving this unruly fellow a thought or two before they kick him out the door?

Discipline often has harsh images in church history. The Spanish Inquisition causes us to shudder at the way force was used in the name of Jesus. More recently, we all know stories of people who were excommunicated, often being pushed away harshly from the community of faith. We know, too, of people who were abused by parents, whipped into submission and beaten senseless, until the rod of discipline became a cruel master and the fist became a weapon of domestic war.

In memories like those, "discipline" can make us think of forces ruling us that bend and fold and repress and warp us.

But if we leave discipline to the bad guys, we lose something essential to our own souls. After all, discipline, as Paul tells us here, can be a source of great personal strength for us. Discipline is a sign that we have purpose in our lives. It says that there is a way of living that matters. It tells me that I can build and develop my character in such a way that I'm a better person tomorrow than I am today.

One of the great themes in C. S. Lewis' book The Screwtape Letters is that habits are hard to build and equally hard to break down. Early in the book Uncle Screwtape, the senior devil, chastises the young demon on earth for letting a man become a Christian. It shouldn't have happened, blazed Screwtape! You could have prevented it!

All is not lost, however, says Screwtape. "There's no need to despair." Hundreds of these kinds of folks have gone to church for a while, he says, but usually they come back to the dark side because "all the habits of the [person], both mental and bodily, are still in our favor!"

C. S. Lewis is telling us what we already know: the desire to serve God is not enough. If it is not coupled with habits of godliness, it will never survive. The things we do with our bodies, and our schedules, and our choices of relationships put a far greater hold on us than we are able to break free from with a single desire on a Sunday morning.

Our voices may speak the confessions of the Church, but our habits trap us into foolish and false lifestyles that drag us down and make us poorer persons. "Don't worry!" says Uncle Screwtape to young Wormwood. "His habits will bring him back to us!"

Similarly, the opposite is the case just as well. Habits of the heart honed in the gymnasium of faith over years of spiritual training can keep us alive in Christ, even during those awful times when we feel dead.

William James said once that our bodies are like plastic. They bend and change as we train them, but then they also hold a certain shape once taught. That becomes the protection of our spirits as well, since the training of our lives, through self-discipline and mutual accountability, gives us the strength of character we need to weather the storms of life that might otherwise throw us off course.

I remember talking with a family at Victoria Hospital years ago. They had experienced great misfortune: a business collapsed under them during the last recession; health problems plagued several family members; then a child died.

Yet they kept their faith in God. Still they kept a sense of purpose to their lives. In spite of it all they carried on with hope for tomorrow and an expectation of God's blessing.

Why?

"Why not?" they said to those around them.

Faith was a way of life for them. It was a pattern of their habits. It was an extension of their spiritual exercises. They didn't always feel their faith, but that didn't bother them. After all, they said, whoever promised that Christianity was supposed to make us feel good?

Instead, they lived their faith, because God had deepened it over the years in promises of his love, and because they had molded it well in the gymnasium of the exercises of Christian faith.

Strong faith and deep traits of character don't happen overnight. They come through training. When they come, they don't slip away quickly, either. As Charles Reade put it more than a century ago:

Sow an act and you reap a habit.
Sow a habit and you reap a character.
Sow a character and you reap a destiny.