Devotionals

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We went through the phase of joining the gym, my husband and I. It was a great start but it was difficult for us both to be free at the same time each morning to meet the trainer, or to find the equipment we needed available at the time. We meant well but it did not work. We walked the beach a few afternoons a week, sometimes father and son walked or jogged the bridge, or we all swam when the temperature of the water permitted. This was not good enough. I acquired some videos that had exercises on a step, weights to be lifted, and other moves to tackle every part of the body, and I began. Casually dressed, comfortably situated, and reasonably scheduled, I had found the answer to my prayer. It was only a matter of motivation. How motivated are you to keep fit? What can be done to change our attitudes toward exercise?

In prayer, it was revealed to me that exercise could become an extension of prayer time. If spiritual discipline was to be a matter of body, mind and spirit, then exercise was my gift back to God in thanksgiving for a healthy temple. How could I forget the times when surgery prevented the simplest movements of bending and stretching? What a privilege to be able to lift weights or do floor exercises or aerobic dance in the following months. How well do you feel right now and how grateful are you for your health?

There is a feeling of sweet exhaustion that comes after a long hike, energized refreshment that comes after a balanced workout, and a peaceful connectedness that overtakes me when I walk on the beach in deep sand to work the muscles. The warm shower afterwards creates the readiness to work for the rest of the day, and reminds me of how much is to be gained from a proper regimen of attention to body, mind and spirit. How do you structure your time?

Exercise is a discipline, and like all disciplines it requires concentration and effort. When I travel, my rhythm is broken requiring the intentional re-establishing of a former habit. I place it in the time frame for morning devotions so that my entire being comes under the “heavy manners” of the Holy Spirit. At times, it is truly a sacrificial offering because the god of sleep calls me to worship at the altar of “snoozie-wooziness” when alarms are turned off and the theology of “just five more minutes” is seen as being faithful to “loving oneself”. The guilt that follows, affords ample opportunity to confess my shortcomings, and to evoke fervent prayers for proper self-denial. What do you feel guilty about? How do you resolve your feelings?

Sometimes sleep is the gift of the Holy Spirit and this is what makes for a real challenge. Rest is a form of loving oneself indeed. If I am up late writing or praying or “thinking in the presence of the Lord” as a kind of “stream of consciousness in the Spirit”, then I know that I am called to have a later morning. If I am up late because I am exercising my “homemaker’s duty” to put the house in order with my special flair for detail, it then becomes a matter of prioritizing how I handle the events of my life in the sequence of importance. What do you consider your priorities? How much of a priority is your relationship with Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit?

Let us work on our options to make exercise a sign of the development of a persevering personality. Even as we want to have the “perishable crown” of persistence in “subduing the flesh”, let us want even more the imperishable crown won for us by the Saviour of the world.

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