Swimming Breakthrough

Monday was a red-letter day for me...even for a Monday.

I swam my first mile. Well, 1500m to be exact, but I'm calling it a mile. It's pretty freakin' close.

I'm really amazed at how far I have come in just six months. I started swimming in January. I had to teach myself the basics of the stroke, work on my endurance, swallow half the pool, and put in my time.

But, Monday, it all paid off. I swam a mile and I'm pretty darn proud of myself. For those of you who are interested, I swam the distance in 29:30. No, I'm not ready for the Olympics or anything, but it's a start.

In retrospect, it's another reason that I started training for triathlons. This process is teaching me self-discipline and self-control. I've started new habits that have become a routine and given me new physical strength. Now, I need to translate that into my spiritual life. I need to start making prayer and study a part of my daily routine as well. Ironically, this very medium (the computer and the Internet) are some of the things that are distracting me from that very goal. But, just as it took me six months to add this new habit to my physical routine, I'm willing to allow myself adequate time to change this spiritual habit as well.

Why Swimming is Like Life

So, in light of my first triathlon and the troubles I've had swimming, I have re-devoted myself to the pursuit and today, I had an epiphany of sorts. Swimming is like life...

Swimming is all about learning to be comfortable in a potentially deadly environment, one that is foreign and not very hospitable to air-breathing life. In swimming, I have learned to put my face in the water where life-giving oxygen is lacking. In order to survive in this environment, I must return to the air by rotating so as to look up. Briefly, I take in the air and then return my face to the water because that's where the work is. While in water, I move as fast and as economically as possible so that I can conserve and best utilize my air until such time as I can return to it. When my workout is done, I will return to that place where air is bountiful and I don't have to worry about it any more.

In the same way, as Christians, we live in a world that is light on grace, heavy on law. This world is potentially deadly to us; if we stay there too long we will suffocate and drown, so we need to turn our face toward Jesus regularly and breathe deeply of his grace. All the while, trying to move with the least amount of resistance (i.e. sin) so as to use this grace efficiently and effectively. When my work here is done, I will return to the place where grace abounds and I won't have to worry anymore.

Okay, so it needs some more "fleshing out" but it's what came to me during my oxygen-deprived state of swimming this afternoon.