Comfort Is a Lie: How I’m Training My Body and Spirit to Fight

I’ve come to accept that challenging circumstances and long, exhausting days are a regular part of my life, regardless of how I feel about it. Just a few weeks ago, I wrote about hitting a wall. Life felt like a non-stop sprint, and I knew I couldn’t keep going at that panicked, erratic pace, so I stepped back. I turned to Heavenly Father and I sought clarity.

Here’s the part I didn’t expect: God invited me to run again.

Not the panicked, I-have-to-do-everything run I’d been doing—but a purposeful, and intentional sprint toward the life He’s been preparing me for.

So here I am. Laced up again. Running with a clearer heart and a focused determination toward a life I’ve been inspired to pursue.

I am a sprinter in a marathon, and I always have been. I do everything with urgency and I’m driven in ways I can’t explain to someone who’s not used to my pace. So, rather than fight against it, explain it, or spend time seeking ways to avoid or change it, I’ve chosen to embrace it and go ALL IN…

Sprint, Lyenna, move…

Sprint: A Call to Embrace the Grind

While working in the yard on Friday, I listened to a podcast featuring a woman in her 50s who had committed fully to her health and fitness. Something about her story struck me with a sense of hunger that awakened a suppressed appetite, and it bubbled to the surface. "Sprint," came the whisper.

She was absolutely jacked—beautiful, strong, and physically inspiring!

She lifted with such impressive power that I saw a vision of myself doing the same. This had become her unapologetic lifestyle, and I felt it in my gut. This was going to be mine, too…sprint.

Physical Discipline Is Spiritual Warfare

It was the beginning of a more profound understanding as Heavenly Father lifted the veil, helping me see that the day-to-day challenges don’t get easier, but my resolve to do the harder right must deepen. Eating poorly is hard—it drains me, dulls my spirit, and undermines the clarity and strength I need most. But choosing to plan, prepare, and fuel my body with intention is also hard. It demands foresight, sacrifice, and a willingness to live on purpose. It’s a daily decision to push back against the natural man, who is, and always has been, an enemy to God.

What I’m learning is that this effort isn’t just about food. It’s about obedience. It’s about sanctifying the mundane through deliberate choices. God is showing me that when I submit my appetite—my cravings, my comfort, my convenience—I unlock spiritual gifts I can’t access any other way. It’s not just physical preparation; it’s spiritual warfare. Every small act of resistance against ease, every decision to do the harder right over the easier wrong, is a declaration of who I serve. It’s a consecrated offering.

And this principle shows up in the grind—in the kitchen, in the gym, in traffic, in the still moments of decision. Sprint isn’t just movement; it’s a mindset. It’s a mantra. It’s a sacred acknowledgment that there is more in me than I’ve allowed myself to give. Until now.

Strength Beyond Aesthetics

These are principles that extend far beyond physical aesthetics—the version of health the world tends to glorify. Don’t get me wrong, I want to look strong. I want to be jacked. A fit body is beautiful, and it’s motivating. But what I’m coming to understand is that I want my spiritual, emotional, and mental strength to match, even surpass, my physical one. That’s the real pursuit. Because when I am strong in all aspects of my being, I become a powerful instrument in God’s hands.

And here’s the truth: when I feel good in my body—when I’m fueling it well, training it with purpose, and honoring it with discipline—it silences the constant distraction of self-perception. I’m not preoccupied with insecurity or discomfort. My mind is freed up to focus on higher things. My spirit is empowered to rise above my appetites and impulses. Physical strength becomes a foundation, not a finish line, supporting a consecrated life of purpose and service.

How does this translate into other aspects?

The Subtle War of Distraction

The physical pull toward ease, comfort, distraction, and idleness is one of the adversary’s most effective tools for dulling our spiritual senses and pulling us away from the Divine. He doesn’t always come with fire and fear; often, he comes cloaked in convenience. Pornography, yes, and that includes steamy romance novels, ladies—doom scrolling, excessive shopping or online browsing, even podcast and audiobook overload. These things become noise. They flood our minds and slowly drain our spiritual focus. Add in comparison, jealousy, anger, or self-pity, and suddenly we’re living in a fog of low-grade temptation that feels normal but is deeply corrosive.

These distractions bring on their own kind of hard. King Benjamin put it plainly when he said:

And finally, I cannot tell you all the things whereby ye may commit sin; for there are divers ways and means, even so many that I cannot number them.

But this much I can tell you, that if ye do not watch yourselves, and your thoughts, and your words, and your deeds, and observe the commandments of God, and continue in the faith of what ye have heard concerning the coming of our Lord, even unto the end of your lives, ye must perish. And now, O man, remember, and perish not. (Mosiah 4:29-30)

This isn’t just about avoiding sin—it’s about watching ourselves, being spiritually awake, not letting comfort become the quiet killer of consecration.

The fruit of the Spirit is “love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, [and] temperance” (Galatians 5:22–23). This is the standard. So the real question isn’t, “Is this wrong?” or “Can I get away with it?”—the deeper, more honest questions are:

What kind of fruit is this habit producing in me?
Is this drawing me closer to Christ, or dulling my sensitivity to Him?
Is this cultivating peace and purpose, or confusion and detachment?
Does this align with the fruit of the Spirit, or something else entirely?

These questions don’t invoke shame; they guide me back to Christ, lifting the veil so that His voice becomes plain, distinct, and discernible. Heavenly Father is inviting and encouraging me to sprint as He whispers…

Awake, and arise from the dust…and put on thy beautiful garments, O daughter of Zion; and strengthen thy stakes and enlarge thy borders forever, that thou mayest no more be confounded, that the covenants of the Eternal Father which he hath made unto thee… may be fulfilled.

Yea, come unto Christ, and be perfected in him, and deny yourselves of all ungodliness; and if ye shall deny yourselves of all ungodliness, and love God with all your might, mind and strength, then is his grace sufficient for you, that by his grace ye may be perfect in Christ; and if by the grace of God ye are perfect in Christ, ye can in nowise deny the power of God. (Moroni 10:31-32)

Sprint because He is coming, and I don’t plan to walk to Him when He does!

Are You Sprinting Toward Him—or Settling for Less?

This is your moment to reflect.

Where are you still choosing comfort over consecration? Where are you holding back your full effort, waiting for things to get easier before you give God your all?

"Sprint" is more than movement. It's obedience, sacrifice, and a mindset that refuses to give the adversary even a sliver of ground.

So ask yourself:Are you sprinting to Him?Or are you walking, waiting, resisting, looking for the path of least resistance?

It’s time to go all in. Sprint.