After reading yesterdays story, “Fit For Life”, my husband Brett compared an incident in his life to that of our make-believe character Richard.  We live just across the street from Brett’s work, but he drives his car every day rather than walk.  But just the day before I wrote “Fit For Life” he chose to walk to work.  The street we live on is lined with trees on both sides and therefore sheltered from the wind.  He walked just a little ways down our street before getting to the main road.  The weather was so beautiful he wondered why he didn’t do it more often.  Then he got out to the main street and the wind hit him.  The seemingly gale force wind took his breath away, and his eyes watered as he tucked his head lower into his coat.  I’m sure he mumbled words under his breath that I’m glad I didn’t hear since I had encouraged the walk.  Now the walk was an entirely different story and making a commitment to daily walking to work became more of a challenge.  After all it is so much easier to get in the car and drive than it is to walk. 

This story has a couple of applications.  First of all; so many times after we choose to make a change for the good in our lives it seems that shortly after that we get hit with the cold winds of reality and it gets harder to do the right thing.  Second of all; how many times do we make it easy on our spiritual lives by applying the point of the sermon to someone elses life rather than our own?  We don’t always appreciate the cold wind of truth hitting us in the face.