I find consistency and patterning are important to long-term success. As I've been recovering from illness, my mornings have not been the same and I've adapted by trying to work in scripture study at other points in the day. I'd been enjoying starting my day with listening to scripture and ending my day with reading the sacred word, but right now I've adapted to listening at different points in the day. Today that was a walk around the block listening to scripture following dinner. I ended up listening to the tale-end of Mosiah 7 and beginning of Mosiah 8 during this walk.

The last three (almost four weeks) has seen me quite ill, but unable to really rest and recover. I took one day off from work to try to recover, but it didn't work, and then with deadlines that had to be met, I was working longer 10 to 11 hour days to make it up which wasn't helping my recovery. I refrained from working out much other than some gentle stretching, or walking, cycling and rebounding to try to keep lymph moving and help clear things out. I'm still a little inflamed around the throat, but started back in with some pull-ups this morning. My scripture study and prayer also suffered as I have been sleeping in and having less time in the mornings to get ready. I should have done better, but this is how it played out with this particular illness and life situation. I've done some sporadic study of the Come Follow Me material in Doctrine and Covenants 60-75 or so to be ready in case I needed to cover Sunday School classes, and last night read a little Old Testament material concerning Jacob/Israel and his wives and children and there birth order. I can and will do better, but as my health is recovering more now, I'm confident I will and I've restarted.

Just like we make gains in strength and endurance through progressive overload when training our bodies, our spiritual growth also depends on progressively learning to rely on the Lord more and more in overcoming trials. We all have our share of these in life as opportunities to progress.

"My people must be tried in all things, that they may be prepared to receive the glory that I have for them, even the glory of Zion; and he that will not bear chastisement is not worthy of my kingdom." (D&C 136:31.)

Today while listening to scriptures this remark in the title stood out for me. It was part of the consensus reply given by the Nephites and people of Zarahemla following King Benjamin's remarks. I think it shows a great strength of faith above and beyond simply a willingness to follow, or loss of desire for sin, but a trust that the Lord can work through them. I will be working to build my trust that the Lord can work through me.

Last night I had a back yard fire with my girls. I was thinking about some parallels with the analogy of the spirt being like a fire burning. It seemed fitting as I've been using small changes for myself to bring about change and overcome inertia to really get restarted that to start the fire required small kindling gradually stepping up until a log is burning, and even then if one log is just left by itself it often won't continue to burn and slowly goes out without a continual supply of smaller material to keep things going. I see this as an important piece of our own spiritual fires, as it were, and how we can strengthen the capacity (size of log) we can handle, but still need to continue with the small and simple basics to keep the flame alive.

It's a beautiful morning. I pushed through pull-ups and biceps curls, and will have to see about squeezing in some back flyes later. I followed through with putting away dishes and listening to scripture. I've ventured over to listening to Doctrine and Covenants to match the Sunday School lesson schedule to be sure I am familiar with the material as I could be called upon to teach Sunday School at any time.

Still going strong - Made my bed, knelt for prayer, unloaded the dishwasher while listening to scriptures, Pull-ups, Body Rows, Back Flyes, and Biceps Curls in rest-pause sets all done this morning.

Lately I've really been finding value in the rest-pause set method with my workouts for the time efficiency. This has me taking a set to failure (as many repetitions as I can complete before giving out) and then resting just brief periods of 15-30 seconds before going again for a few more repetitions - essentially extending out the set into one long set with rests or pauses within it. I've been thinking about how spiritual growth comes after resistance as well. It does seem like to get the growth we need to become Christlike we need to push up against challenges to the point of exhaustion where we can only complete the trial by relying on God. Sometimes, these trials may surpass our ability to push through at first requiring some rest-pause action where we find some distraction or solace somewhere else for a while before facing the challenge again, thus extending our abilities to keep going.

Hi strength-seekers. Today I was able to finally get a new article put together going into some greater detail on things I've wanted to discuss for a while. I did so having also done my part to physically put on my strength with a short and effective workout. I hope that the article can help you to refine your journey to becoming even as (the Lord) is (3 Nephi 27:27)

Still doing pretty well at rebuilding myself into a stronger servant of the Lord. I'm half way through my leg workout for the day, resting a little before hitting the other leg. Morning prayers were a success kneeling at my bedside. I deviated a touch from personal scripture study last night to read material on teaching more effectively as the Savior taught/teaches. I still read a chapter with my family and listened to scripture and felt this was a reasonable adjustment for the night.