This summer I started walking a long trail that ran north from our home. On my best days, I would walk a total of five miles at a brisk pace. This trail follows the power lines that serve a significant portion of North Dallas and stretches far past the two and a half miles I walked up and back this summer. But over the part of the trail I would walk, a number of park benches punctuate the length of the trail.

At some point in the heat of the Dallas summer, I decided that I would add to my walk ten pushups at every park bench. Firming up my softening middle-aged arms seemed like a worthy goal but more than that, I made this decision because my son set before me the example that summer of doing one thing everyday that he didn’t want to do. This meant over the course of my five mile walk, I would do 120 pushups—pushups I didn’t want to do. 

The temptation to let yourself off the hook when you set a goal like this is monumental. No one sees how many pushups you do at each bench. No one sees if you skip a bench all together. And no one is there to tell you that what you did wasn’t a full push up. So, you must be your own judge and jury. You have to tattle on yourself, push yourself, and refuse to yield to the inner voice that tells you it just doesn’t matter. 

Because doing one thing every day that you don’t want to do does matter. It changes your soul more than it changes your body. Aristotle has told us that a man becomes virtuous by doing virtuous deeds. Like it or not, virtue involves doing something we do not want to do. Because virtue is the opposite of vice, when we choose to act virtuously we put to death some form of vice which means pain. Aristotle also tells us that all men avoid pain and pursue pleasure because it is in our nature to do so. This is why so few men are truly virtuous. 

Getting at the soul through the body is how virtue is produced. There really is no other way. We do not become more virtuous by saying yes to ourselves. Virtue requires we learn to say no. We cannot become more content by buying more Lululemon. Instead, we must decide to put on the old leggings and go to the gym. We cannot become more loving by asking our kids to bring us another glass of tea. Instead, we become more loving by putting down our phones and making dinner. There has to be an actual choice, a choice that involves doing something you don’t want to do. Virtue lives in the heart, but it is produced in time and space.

This can be practiced without relying on works righteousness. Our good deeds do not make us more redeemable in God’s eyes. Just like the Israelites, he sets His love upon us by divine choice through no merit of our own. But also, just like the Israelites, we are accountable for what we do as we wander the desert. Our complaining, our forgetfulness, our ingratitude form us and shape us into a certain type of person. And those who truly love God will guard their hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Guarding means we commit to doing things we do not want to do because something greater is at stake. That something greater includes our fitness for heaven, our desire to be with the Lord, and our witness before others. 

Virtue is not just for the ancient Greeks. What they have told us about human nature remains true thousands of years later. The shape of our souls is our responsibility, and who we are in this life makes a difference in the next.