I have known first-year Greek students who kept asking me to recommend books about learning New Testament Greek. They already had my beginning grammar but they wanted, it seemed, to add to their library every other resource ever published. When I was teaching myself German, I fell into the same pattern. Seems I bought every beginning German grammar I could, thinking that the more resources I possessed the faster the learning would go. In the end, I decided I only needed to master one basic grammar.
The fact is, achieving any goal in life requires patience. It involves, not an on-off switch, but a lever. Some of you are out of shape. You want to remedy that situation. The way to do it is not by joining two or three health clubs and buying every book on exercise that's out there. As obvious as your fitness decline may be, it isn't irreversible. But the rebirthing process to get back into shape will take many months, if not years. What's needed is consistent, unimpeded training. Of course, you want speedier results. We all do. But in reality, it's a slow climb back to an active lifestyle.
Remember: The journey is as important as the destination. The key is understanding what is best for your body. You want to push it far enough to make a difference and enable you to enjoy the process, but not so far as to risk overstress or injury. Running and walking are ideal recreational activities for time-pressed, efficiency-minded people. But it all begins with patience. The road is not always smooth or flat. But millions of runners and walkers have gone before you. For all of us, the miracle isn't that we started; it's that we kept going.
