Did you enjoy your run today?

I saw a baby stroller in a corner of my son’s drive way and asked if I could borrow it to take his young daughter for ‘walks’ in the neighborhood. Yes, certainly he replied, but first let me pump the tires up. I was appalled; do to-days young mothers really have to pump up the tires of the stroller before they take the baby for a ride in it? How hard they make life for themselves. “It’s a jogging stroller explained my son,” telling me that people not only push the stroller, but they run whilst they are doing it. He also explained that it had a wrist strap so that if I ran down a particularly steep hill the stroller couldn’t break loose and run away by itself. No, that’s not likely, but I do have a rather vivid picture of the stroller running down hill dragging an attached grandma by the wrist strap. Now I have seen jogging strollers before, but the reason I didn’t know what they are meant for, is because I’ve only seen them outside coffee shops. I see parents unloading these things from the car trunk, inserting a child and ordering a coffee. Then they sit in the sunshine and talk with other parents who are likewise seated beside their offspring in jogging strollers. Now this I can understand; social exercise is something parents of baby-talking infants desperately need, before the parent looses the ability to think in anything other than child-speak. It is interesting that if the child is old enough he/she is given a carton of chocolate milk to drink while the parent drinks coffee. Pleasant and relaxing, but running with a stroller; that’s pushing it! Imagine someone with a past history of pregnancy and labor and a future prospect of broken nights and near frenzy, being willing to run up and down our California hills with a stroller.

Physical exercise, say the Apostle Paul writing to Timothy is a little useful, but godliness (god-likeness) is profitable for every situation. God-likeness in a parent might just be something that a child appreciates as much as the slim and healthy body his parents are striving to maintain.

As strange as the notion of jogging with a stroller is, so is the phrase, ‘spiritual discipline” Spiritual disciplines are religious exercises. People who value godliness do them because they wish to become more godly. There are spiritual disciplines (exercises) in every denomination. I grew up in the Assemblies with fasting disciplines and Bible study. When I became a Presbyterian I added reading from the lectionary and praying from the Book of Worship. (Because when I do these I am not alone in my home, but many others are reading the same passages on the same day in different homes)

Physical exercises result in health and a good appearance. Spiritual exercises have a similar result; healthy religion and good actions. The good actions are a product of the exercise but also a way of maintaining the results, because it is when the word springs from our heart into our hands, feet and lips that it is perceived as godly. Choosing what is God-like becomes a learning exercise, and doing what is godly, develops spiritual strengths and muscles.

Godliness, says Paul, is useful for everything, not only now but in the next life also. The body will die and be resurrected, but in a different shape. The Spirit however will never die but will give account of all the things done in the earthly body.

1 Timothy 4: 7 & 8
1 Corinthians 15: 35 – 44
2 Corinthians 5:1-5 .