It's amazing what some people will do to be spiritual. On September 18, 2003, Genshin Fujinami, 44, a Buddhist priest nicknamed the "Marathon Monk," finished a seven-year, 24,800-mile journey in the Hiei Mountains of Japan. It was intended to be a trek to enlightenment.

Once a monk starts this journey he must finish or kill himself. According to an Associated Press article, for the first three years the pilgrim must rise at midnight for 100 consecutive days to pray and run 18 miles per day, stopping 250 times to pray along the way. During the next two years, he must up his schedule to 200 days. In the fifth year the pilgrim must sit and chant mantras for nine days without food, water, or sleep in a trial called doiri, or "entering the temple." In the sixth year, he must walk 37.5 miles every day for 100 days. In the seventh year, he must run 52.5 miles for 100 days, 18 miles for another 100 days, and then complete a 234-mile trek back to his home base.

Even that would not be enough to find God, according to the Bible. No matter how arduous one's efforts, no one can atone for sin or find fellowship with God by human effort. Jesus Christ made the only journey that mattered.