A couple months ago I wrote an article called “Shifting the Weight” for Love is Moving, a ministry of The Evangelical Fellowship of Canada (EFC) that publishes articles digitally as well as in print three times a year. I’ve written for them a few times before but hadn’t written an article in quite some time.
I had been talking with a friend back in March about some of my experiences going to the gym and about some of the deeper things the Lord was challenging in me as a result. Out of nowhere he goes, “Maybe you should write an article about being an Enneagram 2 and your experience with the gym!” I kinda chuckled about how random that would be and didn’t think much of it.
The following week I received the “Spring 2022 Issue 49 + Call for Pitches” email from the editor at Love Is Moving…
“We’re accepting pitches for the Summer Issue:
Are you passionate about sports or fitness and how they relate to your faith? We’d love to hear your stories.”
I could not believe my eyes.
Needless to say, God works in very mysterious and unexpected ways.
I won’t post the entire article here because that feels like cheating, haha, but one particular part of it has been coming to mind a lot lately and that is what I’d like to share with you.
Even though my entry point to this thought was inspired by going to the gym and learning how to lift weights properly, many of us might struggle with similar thoughts in other parts of our lives.
“I can’t help but wonder how many times we go to quit on our calling or on the task the Lord has set before us for fear of not being perfect at it immediately.
How many times are we caught up in comparing ourselves to the people around us rather than allowing ourselves to be caught up in the work of the Spirit?
How many times have I chosen to heap extra weight on my shoulders based on how well or how poorly I performed, when the only thing God ever asked me to lift was my face towards Him?
As the pressure to magically and instantly become a perfect weightlifter began to dissolve and the unhealthy striving ceased, I felt at home. Not just in the gym, but within myself. When I approached the gym one day, I noticed the same kind of excitement stirring in me that I often feel when I arrive at church or go to worship/spend time with God.
The gym, I’ve come to realize, is another place for me to feel especially close to God. The closeness doesn’t happen because of anything I’ve done well or because I’ve been especially helpful lately. It’s actually the exact opposite.
The more I begin to simply be present and do my best with whichever lifts I’m doing in the moment, the more I begin to feel peace overtake the stress.”
Lifespring, we have been hearing some really encouraging testimonies in our Sunday Celebrations and heard a mind-boggling financial report this past week. God is moving and working and doing incredible things in our midst!!
However, I invite you to pause and take a moment to reflect on where your story is right in this very moment.
- Consider honestly the things the Lord has invited you into over the years, at the beginning of 2022, at the beginning of this month?
- Have you been striving to prove your worth in your response to God’s invitation to partner? Or have you been persisting from a place of peace? Maybe you waffle back and forth…
- Have you lost sight of who you are, who you were created to be, in the storms of comparison? What does it look like to come back from that and to rediscover your true identity?
Wherever it is that you find yourself, right now even as you read these words, I encourage you to take a really deep breath and pause long enough to receive even a splash of God’s enormous love for you. Literally nothing can take his love and affections away from you.
God longs to lavish his love upon you and to invite you into all sorts of exciting new opportunities… Ultimately it will require faithfulness on your part, but it begins with acknowledging His faithfulness to you. It begins with you receiving and truly believing that God’s love for you is not only real, but that it has changed/redeemed your identity.
But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.
1 Peter 2:9-10