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.
