Three hours are probably not necessary...

Martin Luther once said, more or less, that he had so much work to do that he needed to spend the first three hours of his day in prayer.  Presumably, what he meant was that those hours of prayer enabled the rest of his work.

Now, Martin Luther is not exactly famous for his exercise programs or fitness.  And prayer during exercise is strictly optional (much like in schools, where, as someone once said, it will occur as long as there are tests; in an exercise context, I think that prayer is connected to lunges or burpees and can be summarized as “Please God let these be over soon!”).  Nonetheless, I would argue that exercise, for many of us, can have the same kind of effect on our work.  (No, I am not saying that exercise is a religion, or that we can sweat instead of pray, or actually anything about faith at all.  That is well beyond the scope of my practice or my intelligence.  I’m just making an analogy.  Which I will get around to in the next paragraphs.)

We often think we don’t have time to exercise.  We’re too tired.  We have too many things to do.  This could very easily have been Martin Luther’s attitude toward the discipline of prayer.  But he chose differently.  We can, too.

We need to squeeze in at least a little cardio anyway.

It will give us more energy, sharpen our brains, and create a sense of accomplishment.