Today more than ever, we need encouragement on our pathway to eternity. As Christians there are tribulation times coming our way, not for our destruction, on the contrary, for our edification – even if, oh Lord, it is difficult for us to see it at such so many times. Just as with fitness and gymnastics, you can’t train for a day and the next to become the winner of the Olympics! No, it doesn’t happen overnight.
A friend gave me a new fitness video program and it has been a while since I have seriously worked out; when I first saw the trainer performing it to such speed I said to myself "I will never be able move that fast!" However, three weeks later I realized I was moving just as fast as she did! "Hmm, it was not impossible after all" I concluded.
At that moment, the spiritual parallel occurred to me; I saw that you can’t all of a sudden be strong in faith if you have never seen God pulling you out of deep dark fountains of despair or fear! Theory is good but practice is so much better; even if it is more difficult to practically go though pain, it is only then when we experience for real that God is undeniably with us, weighing the extent of our trial and not letting anything extra so as to destroy us. He doesn’t destruction! He wants to make us stronger and mature soldiers in His army! Yes, that’s why we need the hard training.
Also fitness trainers say that if you perform over 12-15 dumbbell lifts and afterwards you still can perform some more, it is time to change the weight of your dumbbell. If you don’t, you can’t reach the performance you want, you settle for much less. So it happens with our "spiritual muscles"; if God would give us no weight at all, we’d never use our "spiritual muscles" especially when we keep in mind that we were born to fight, a spiritual fight of course, not killing or harming each other but on the contrary, showing purity, truth, love and a humble all people.
Yes, but just as it is with fitness, we can’t train for one day and get all the fat over with and all the muscles we want! It takes time and serious training, actually if we want to be fit, exercising has to become a way of life.
It is the same with the "spiritual muscles"; how can you imagine giving your life , being willing to die for your faith just as the first Christians did, if today you can’t stand the way your neighbor has talked to you (because you are a Christian). Although, you might be right, you need to get used to these "small dumbbells" and spiritually "perform the exercise" until you don’t find it difficult any more. Yes, you’re right, once the present dumbbell becomes light… time to get a heavier one!
Remember that soldiers go through rough training programs to achieve all the physical mental endurance they need for the battle. Just as they do, we as Christians fight but with different kind of weapons:"for though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does. The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power demolish strongholds. We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ."2 Corinthians 10:4,5
No comments:
Post a Comment