I Work Out!

"I work out!"

This has become a punch line of sorts for me over the years. This is the answer that I give whenever someone asks if I can help them carry something, or help them move, or even if my wife asks me to take out the garbage. Well, of course I can! I work out!

I say this with the knowledge that I am being satirical. There is an element of truth to it...I do work out! At the same time though, I say this line in full well knowing that it will elicite a reaction of laughter (at least...that is the hope).

This is not necessarily a bad thing. I take no offense that people laugh. I do not assume that they are laughing at the concept of me lifting weights, but more-so it being my rational for why I am able to help. But this is now getting off the point...

I have always been a skinny guy to the point that it has become an element of my identity. One of my first e-mail addresses was simply Coatrack. My logic behind this was that I am tall, slender, and like to wear coats. During my important formative years I was part of a club called "Team Lanky." (This did not involve organized events).

But recently (within the past few years) I have started making it more of a priority to care for my physical body.  Simply put (and this should not have been a breakthrough for me), simply being skinny does not make one healthy.

This has led me to enter into the gym over the past few years.  Learning to overcome my insecurities (feeling weak), and shame (looking weak); while learning to become more comfortable with who I am and how I am made.

But even still, the gym has been inconsistent to say the least.  Despite recognizing the positive impact that it has, and the important that I should place on it, I have rarely prioritized it in my daily life. 

And that is where I am today.  For the past 5 weeks I have been waking up early in order to prioritize my physical health.  I expected to see improvement in many areas: self-discipline (waking up early), my physical body (improved health), more energy, better sleep, etc.

But what has shocked me the most is the improvements that I did not expect, most of which I can see in my spiritual life.  The more frequently I found (forced?) myself going to the gym, the more connected I started to be in my relationships with God.  It may seem strange, but going to the gym has become a spiritual discipline of sorts in my life. 

My prayer time as I bike to the school.

The wonder that I have at how God designed my body to work.

My time of reflection during my cool down stretching.

“Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your bodies.” – 1 Corinthians 6:19-20

I have heard this verse spoken on many times over the years, and every time it has come with an explanation such as: “And this is why you don’t smoke.”  Or, “You probably shouldn’t have drank that bottle of maple syrup.” Or, “That’s why tattoos are evil.”

But this verse has begun to take on a new meaning for me.  Rather than simply not doing wrong to our bodies (I have no problem with tattoos, but the maple syrup thing was a poor decision), we are called to do more.

When Solomon was overseeing the building of the Temple in 2 Chronicles 3, we read about the intricacy and beauty that he put into the temple…

And so I say with new meaning…”I work out!”

Lent...

Today is the start of Lent. The start of a season in the Christian calendar that I do not fully understand. I can appreciate the idea of giving something up in order to focus on growing in wisdom. My struggle is simply giving up something along the lines of pop/soda, which I have done before...multiple times.

I never really understood why I was giving up pop/soda in order to deepen my relationship with God. In actuality though...I was doing it because it was a healthy choice. At those times I found myself drinking a lot of pop/soda and it was not a healthy thing for me...but was it a hinderance to my relationship with God in any way?

Giving up pop/soda was a healthy choice, and in that way it was honoring to God. I believe that how we care for our bodies is important as it is a creation of God.

A friend of mine recently shared an idea that he has been thinking about recently. The idea, roughly speaking, was that we as believers so often deny our appetites because they are not honoring to God. My friend's point about this is that this is simply a newer form of Gnosticism...the idea that anything material or physical is not of God and that our lives are meant to be lived simply as spiritual beings.

If we were meant to live simply as spiritual beings...then why is there a physical. In reality, according to my friend, most of our human appetites are healthy and good. Rather then denying those appetites entirely, we are intended to work to manage those appetites in a way that focused on aligning our lives with the Truth from the Bible. For example, we are created as sexual beings and have sexual appetites. A traditional view of sexuality from a Christian perspective is that it is to be denied and, in a lot of ways, is a very unhealthy thing. Sexuality though is a healthy appetite when managed in a positive/biblical way...sex within marriage.

This is not a blog post about sexuality though...despite what it may seem like. These are just a bunch of random thoughts that I have been thinking about recently. Which brings me back to Lent...

Just because something is enjoyable does not make it wrong/evil. Just because I enjoy watching TV does not make that wrong. Just because I enjoy a beautiful hamburger from George's Burgers (Winnipeg, MB. Near St. Vital Mall) does not make that inherently bad.

But....if all I were to do were to eat burgers from Geoerge's and watch TV...that would not be healthy. For me, I am looking at Lent this year as an opportunity to look at the priorities in my life and refocus those towards God.

Which I think is the actual goal of Lent...rather then to give up pop/soda because I feel like I have to give up something.

My favorite hobby is sports (primarily basketball), which includes watching sports and constantly reading about sports. My mind is almost always thinking about stats, standings, schedules, prospects, and teams. And in actuality, reading sports articles has become too much of a priority in my life.

So that is what I am giving up for Lent...I will not be using the internet in my apartment (other then to blog, or check my work e-mail) in order to examine the priorities of my life.

I want God to be a much bigger priority then sports. I am not saying that sports has been a higher priority...but I do believe that my constantly sports filled brain may be too busy with sports to hear some things.

I want to hear...

Being Alone...with Bonhoeffer

"Many people seek fellowship because they are afraid to be alone. Because they cannot stand loneliness, they are diven to seek the compnay of other people. There are Christians too, who cannot endure being alone, who have had some bad experiences with themselves, who hope they will gain some help in association with others. They are generally disappointed. Then they blame the fellowship for what is really their own fault. The Christian community is not a spiritual sanatorium. The person who comes into a fellowship because he is running away from himself is misusing it for the sake of diversion, no matter how spiritual this diversion may appear. He is really not seeking community at all, but only distraction which will allow him to forget his loneliness for a brief time, the very alienation that creates the deadly isolation of man."
- Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together, p. 76.

The Painful Awareness of Place

I am becoming painfully aware of my place. This sounds like a bad thing, but it is a blessing that I have utmost thanks for. My awareness is that I am loved, that I am a child of the living God, and I am His.

This is the journey that I am on. It can be painful, but it is in this pain that I am comforted. It is in this place where I am intimately meeting with my Love, with my Lord.

First Call....

I feel called to minister to others...how quickly I seem to forget that my first calling is to be ministered to by God. My first call, and the primary one in my life, must be to be with God. This can be through others around me, or through the powerful movement of the Holy Spirit. This is what it means to be a disciple.

I would rather sit at His feet
Than stand in front and preach

Dancing with the Creator

"I was raised to believe that the quality of a man’s life would greatly increase, not with the gain of status or success, not be his heart’s knowing romance or by prosperity in industry or academia, but by his nearness to God. It confuses me that Christian living is not simpler. The gospel, the very good news, is simple, but this is the gate, the trailhead. Ironing out faithless creases is toilsome labor. God bestows three blessings on man: to feed him like birds, dress him like flowers, and befriend him as a confidant. Too many take the first two and neglect the last. Sooner or later you figure out like is constructed specifically and brilliantly to squeeze a man into association with the Owner of heaven. It is a struggle, with labor pains and thorny landscape, bloody hands and a sweaty brow, head in hands, moments of severe loneliness and questioning, moments of ache and desire. All this leads to God, I think. Perhaps this is what is on the other side of the commercials, on the other side of the curtain behind which the Wizard of Oz pulls his levers. Matter and thought are a canvas on which God paints, a painting with tragedy and delivery, with sin and redemption. Life is a dance toward God, I begin to think. And the dance is not so graceful as we might want. While we glide and swing our practiced sway, God crowds our feet, bumps our toes and scuffs our shoes. So we learn to dance with the One who made us. And it is a difficult dance to learn, because its steps are foreign."
- Donald Miller, Through Painted Deserts, p. 90-91.

The Expression of Love

"The splendor of a human heart which trusts that it is loved gives God more pleasure and delight than Westminster Cathedral, the Sistine Chapel, and all the other human glories combined. Why does our trust offer such immense pleasure to God? Because trust is the preeminent expression of love. Thus, it may mean more to Jesus when we say, 'I trust you,' than when we say, 'I love you.' Where am I in all this? With you, clasping hands each morning and crying out in unison, 'Lord Jesus, I trust you; help my lack of trust.' "
- Brennan Manning, Ruthless Trust, p. 180-181.

Manning on Brokenness

"The great weakness in the North American church at large, and certainly in my life, is our refusal to accept our brokenness. We hide it, evade it, gloss over it. We grabe for the cosmetic kit and put on our virtuous face to make ourselves admirable to the public. Thus, we present to others a self that is spiritually together, superficially happy, and lacquered with a sense of self-deprecating humor that passes for humility. The irony is that while I do not want anyone to know that I am judgmental, lazy, vulnerable, screwed up, and afraid, for fear of losing face, the face that I fear losing is the mask of the imposter, not my own!" (Brennan Manning, Ruthless Trust, pg. 122)

The Elephant in the Room

It’s one in the morning and I can’t sleep because there is an elephant in the room. Not a literal elephant of course; but rather a proverbial elephant. An elephant that I can’t stop looking at. I mean, if there was an elephant in your room you would look at it too. I try not to look. I close my eyes and pretend like the elephant is not there…and I slowly start to think that I may have willed it away. So I open my eyes to check, only to find the elephant is bigger and more of a reminder. Because that’s what this elephant is…it’s a reminder. It is here, so I don’t forget….so I can’t forget.

And as I stare at this elephant I realize something very profound…I am powerless against this elephant. So I am left feeling small, weak, and powerless. Nothing I can do can rid me of this elephant…nothing can rid me of this reminder. My thoughts continually go back and forth and I can’t seem to get free.

What an unlikely scenario…but I go through it daily. The Psalmist writes about wrestling with his thoughts, and I could not think of a better way of phrasing it. I am wrestling with these thoughts, I am powerless against them, and I am left feeling angry. I am left feeling angry at God because I am powerless. Nothing I can think of can rid me of these thoughts. Nothing I can do can rid me of these thoughts. And once again I am left to rely on and trust God…and that makes me angry. I don’t really want to trust Him completely….sometimes I don’t even want to trust Him at all. So it’s lucky for me then that I don’t really have a choice as to whether to trust God. In this I mean that a relationship with God implies trust. I can’t walk with God if I don’t trust him. So I am left with only one choice. The only choice I have is this: will I trust God, or will I reject Him and grasp for autonomy?

And so I strive to trust…because I know He sees the elephant as well.

Wise words from a friend

For several years I have had a friend that I deeply care about. This is not a friend that I can spend time with, or even see (although I did one time). He would not consider me a friend due to the fact that we have never actually met, but this does not change the impact that he has had on me. His name is Brennan Manning. Over the past 3 years, his writings (and the one time I had the privilege to hear him speak) have made a lasting impression on me. He is a man that I am continually thankful for and whose writings inspire me to greater intimacy with Jesus. As I have had a lot of time on my hands lately, I have found myself picking up a book of his once again. I have never read Ruthless Truth before, but am once again being inspired by this man's life and work. As always, I feel the need to share:

• "Of what avail is our life of prayer, our study of scripture, our theology, and spirituality, if we do not trust the insights that we have received? Waffling back and forth between a decisive yes and a discouraging no keeps us in a state of terminal procrastination. Likewise, an exclusive emphasis on the burning theological issues of the day (many of which are neither burning nor theological) or a one-sided emphasis on the pressing issues of social justice can temporarily or even permanently postpone a decision to trust in the love of God, thus keeping us in a state of spiritual limbo (p. 20)."

I am sure as I continue reading that I will again be sharing words that mean so much to me...as I learn about loving and trusting my Abba.