Healthy Living

Dedication All Around Us

by Terry Barlow
02/10/18
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It amazes me to see how dedicated and disciplined people can be to their own bodies and the fitness of those bodies.  How early they will rise and to what lengths they will go  to look their very best.  This of course is not a bad thing because Scripture tells us in Timothy that physical exercise profits a little for the benefit it can bring in this life.  It also amazes me how dedicated people are to their animals.  What enormous amounts of money are spent on pets in our society and how disciplined are the owners in walking them even in the worst weather conditions like biting cold, or sweltering heat or rain.  People make sacrifices for their pets as they do for their own physical fitness or their own business or employment, rising well before dawn and then burning the midnight oil on top of it!
   So I can't help but ask myself if people can be so dedicated and disciplined about physical fitness and their own appearances, and their pets, and their businesses, not to mention their homes and automobiles,  cannot that be a cue to the people of God to pursue the knowledge of their God and the spreading about of that knowledge with at least as much zeal, and diligence and commitment as those aforementioned?   The Lord of all life is actually worthy of a much greater zeal on our part,  seeing that we do it seeking spiritual fitness not only for a benefit in this life but also in the life to come,  as Paul's letter to Timothy also tells us. (1 Timothy 4, v.8)  We have only to look around us at others in this world daily and listen to hear an urgent summons to continually press into knowing Jesus more deeply and knowing exactly what it is He is requiring of us in this hour and how and in what manner it is to be implemented.

  My wife and I literally danced our way into a mid-week church gathering recently.  Admittedly it was she who started it,  spontaneously setting an example that I could not resist.  What made her dedication of herself zealous in that moment was her enthusiasm!  Hers was no grim commitment of herself but a joyous, wholehearted one that invited and inspired participation.  If we did more spontaneous things like dancing instead of dutifully trudging into church gatherings we might be pleasantly surprised at who and how many would join us!