Simple- Go out and run, just don't stop.

[17] Though the fig tree should not blossom,

nor fruit be on the vines,

the produce of the olive fail

and the fields yield no food,

the flock be cut off from the fold

and there be no herd in the stalls,

[18] yet I will rejoice in the LORD;

I will take joy in the God of my salvation.

[19] GOD, the Lord, is my strength;

he makes my feet like the deer's;

he makes me tread on my high places.

(Habakkuk 3:17-19 ESV)

It's funny that the longer I've followed God, the more I see patterns in what I learn, in what I'm told, and in what I say about God. He is good, He loves, He is justice, He is mercy. As a Christian I must love, I must yearn to know him, I must follow his commands. I've said these things in a hundred different ways, (no really, read my journal) and heard them in thousands more. When it comes down to it what we are called to do is relatively simple. But that doesn't mean it is easy. Take joy, because even when the fig tree doesn't blossom, and the vines bear no fruit, we rejoice in the Lord, and be patient for him to fulfill his promises, and to know that he is there with us. Part of that is based in discipline. Patience is hard, listening when you might not even know what to listen for is hard. But it is simple.

The act of running a marathon is physically and psychologically very, very difficult, but the concept of it is relatively simple. You go out, you run, and you don'g stop until you hit the finish line.

That is the difference between what I sometimes feel Christianity is, and what it actually is. It isn't a riddle to be solved, it isn't a winding maze of theology, or an overwhelmingly loud noise with no discernible message. It is hard, but that difficulty doesn't mean complexity. I tend to over think everything so this can be particularly difficult for me. There's got to be more to it then that! But this simple task isn't a short or easy one, so it takes discipline to make it to the finish line. Even the easiest things cannot be finished without discipline.

We aren't sprinting here, we don't have an end in sight (no matter how many people told you that Jesus was coming back on Saturday). But the way we are going is straight (and narrow!), it's just going to take discipline to keep moving.