Discipleship - a workout

Just back from a run. 2 months ago I ran a marathon, and already I'm out of shape - a little less muscle, a little more flub, and a pair of gasping lungs. So frustrating. I want to train and work hard to get my body healthy and strong, then quit and have it stay that way, but it doesn't. I want to pray and study Scripture, figure it all out once and for all, to get my mind healthy and strong, then quit and have it stay that way, but it doesn't. The daily grind is so...frustrating. You ease up for a moment and everything falls apart.

"Things Fall Apart" - how true. I've not read the African novel, but undergrad Brit. Lit. introduced me to a Yeats' poem that I really like:
Turning and Turning in the widening gyre
The falcon can not hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the center cannot hold...
and then...
Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming!
I like it not because its so happy, but because its so telling of our condition. Things fall apart - when left to ourselves our lives are always coming undone - but restoration is coming!

RE: Discipleship - Salvation Now?
I say, salvation now, but we're all aware that this life is still very much affected by the fall. Salvation is now, but it is only in part. One day it will be full (The Second Coming!), but for now we've got to work at living under God's authority, 'cause it doesn't come natural to us. Ecclesiastes describes this so vividly - "Vanity, Vanity, all is vanity". In vain I run a marathon, in vain I practice spiritual discipline today, only to watch it all come unravelled if I don't work at it again tomorrow. Salvation (true life) is work - continuous daily work!
Paul writes, "just as you have always obeyed...work out your salvation with fear and trembling" (Phil 2:12).

So salvation is now, if only in part. It is a life of discipleship, a life of work, but it is the good life.