First Baptist Church of Herndon

Staying on Track

Linda Soller | Jan 20, 2014

Can you believe it’s already the 20^th of January? In the Drop In class we are talking about spiritual fitness and it seems we have barely covered what we think spiritual fitness is, and what our possible goals might be, and now we need to think about tracking our progress. If we aren’t careful we’ll be well in to the year before we get going. You may remember earlier this month I mentioned my Fit Bit which is set up to help track a variety of aspects of a person’s physical fitness. For spiritual fitness it’s not so easy.

The Do Drops, those folks who attend the Drop In class, identified 11 areas that might be measured when you try to focus on your spiritual fitness. The list was extended the 2^nd week up to 15 areas. The areas on our list include prayer, caring for others, studying the Bible, volunteering, and so on. I feel like we hit the obvious ones, and even if you don’t go to church you would most likely come up with a very similar list. There were some items that were perhaps more obvious to church goers such as attending church and financial support for the church. That last one is a topic that most like to avoid discussing and for now so will I. The million dollar question is, “Can we possibly tackle all 15 at once and know if we are on track?”  I say no.

When you leave your house on any given day will you do just one thing and one thing only? I see you shaking your head no. In our busy world I doubt we could find many people who could make that claim. You start your day with a list of things you need to do. Your list might be a real list on paper or one in your head, but it’s there somewhere.  If you’re trying to get physically fit you might list, eat a good breakfast, park further from your office so you can walk more, head to the gym, have a healthy dinner, and get to bed on time. But what would your list look like if your focus was on your spiritual fitness?  Perhaps you’d start your day by thanking God that you woke up at all, you’d work in times to meditate, read your Bible or a devotional, you’d go somewhere to volunteer or participate in a group, at the end of the day you might thank God for getting you through the day, and probably pray for others in need. Can you measure that? Do you really want to take something like spirituality and reduce it to a list? Is it even spiritual if you need a list to remind you to do it? There are plenty of questions, and no simple answers.

I think that everyone can become more spiritually fit. I think that you can only really improve your spiritual fitness if you focus on a few things at a time or else it’s overwhelming. I think to get fit you start with the basics. I think being spiritually fit isn’t just about you, but it’s also about your impact on others. I think becoming more spiritually fit is worth the time and effort it takes to stay on track. I think staying on track requires recognition of what you don’t do so well and what you are pretty good at. I think that working on the things that come easy is the lazy approach to getting fit. But hey, we are talking about you becoming more spiritually fit, so it’s what you think that matters. How will you stay on track?

Have a great week!  :o)    Linda