Scientist tell us that we should brush our teeth for about 5 minutes, twice a day. So that would be a total of 10 minutes everyday. In a year you should brush your teeth 3650 minutes or 60.8 hours. But I digress... My point is, why don't we just brush our teeth for an hour every Saturday? That fills the recommendation right? Scientists should be happy.

Isn't that ridiculous? I believe this principle applies to other aspects of life. If you only brush your teeth for an hour one day a week your teeth are probably going to fall out. If you want to be good at anything you have to practice it regularly. If you want to have strong muscles, you have to work out more than once. If you want to learn a language, you have to practice daily.

The other day I was reading Scriptures. I wondered to myself and perhaps to God about what it is that I should be learning. For some reason the word Patience stuck out to me very strongly more than once. Then I remembered that we must crawl before we walk and walk before we run. Two days later I found myself in the Scriptures again. If I were having a conversation with God at that time it would probably go something like this: "Alright, God. I've learned patience. What's next?" and then God replies with "DILIGENCE!" It nearly jumped out of the page at me. In my arrogance, I had assumed that I had mastered what I needed to and that I was ready to move on. I was patient for a few days, yes, but that could be compared to brushing my teeth once. Patience, like most virtues or values, requires diligence to have any effect.

Now, I wouldn't pretend to know, but I think it must be diligence that fuels accomplishment. ... Just a theory.