Emulating what I have seen in them, I felt....powerful....
It was amazing to not care about how I felt or my personal preferences. I quickly learned that during this challenge, I was going to feel a lot of different things but that didn't change my plan. Again, this is new. Normally I am pretty directly influenced by my feelings and urges. They help me to be fun and spontaneous. I add flavor to other people's lives by having ideas of what could be fun or exciting in the moment. People who have eaten out with me often wait until the very moment we are leaving for a restaurant to decide what we are eating, knowing that I probably have some impulse that I will not be swayed from. (I have very gracious friends...)
Last time I spoke of discipline as something we should pursue meaningfully and purposefully combat the image in our heads that discipline is bad or wrong or representative of punishment. This time I want to go one step further. I propose that discipline be pursued for discipline's sake. It is not a matter of losing weight or beginning a habit. Discipline is self training that puts us in charge of our emotions and keeps us from being swayed by the half-truths of our lives and our surroundings.
Yesterday, I felt hungry. I wasn't getting to eat anything I really "felt" like eating, but instead ate each thing I was supposed to eat according to my plan, at the appropriate time and in the specific quantities. I wasn't satisfied with it. I wanted nachos. And beer. And brownies. My calculations of my Basal Metabolic Rate and estimated exertion gave me the correct number of calories and my protein rich diet specified how many calories come from the macronutrient categories of carbs, protein and fat. I knew I had eaten everything I needed to eat but emotionally I wasn't satisfied. Without such a structured plan, my emotion could have tricked me into thinking that I was physically hungry, rather than emotionally disappointed with lack of chocolate. I also didn't feel like exercising. I knew I needed to, but without a check box, I would have allowed myself to sit on the couch and read, rather than force myself to do the very exercise that I had allowed for in my plan.
If you don't know me - you can't begin to imagine how foreign this lifestyle is for me. It's like I woke up in opposite universe instead of my normal life. But at the end of the day, I felt powerful.
2 Tim 1:7 says that the Lord has given us a spirit of power, love and self-control. This idea of Spirit given self-control kept me going all day yesterday, but the implications of this are HUGE.
I can accomplish anything I set out to do. Period.
So what do I really want to do?
Fitness and diet are only one facet of me and certainly not the most important area for my immortal soul. Am I using this spiritual gifting to draw my closer to the Lord. Am I using this discipline to dive into the Word? Am I using this power to cast out fear and boldly follow wherever God leads?
We don't pursue discipline for a goal of our own making, but rather to live a life of obedience, whatever that call may be. Personally, I do feel God is calling me to address my health and fitness in this time. But it isn't the only call on my life. To shy away from His call into His service rejects the very gift He has given me to improve my health and well-being. That is why the verse begins with "For God has not given us a spirit of fear or timidity....."
He does not want us living timid lives, fearful of the path He may call us to. We might live a life similar to that of Paul. Or maybe of Job. Whatever the case may be, it will be for His glory and for our best. He will work His will through our lives into a vision of glory. But we must be disciplined to obey His call, whatever the case may be. We must be disciplined with the truth to know that He will provide the power to move the mountain before us.
1 Peter 1:5-8 says "Now for this very reason also, applying all diligence, in your faith supply moral excellence, and in your moral excellence, knowledge, and in your knowledge, self-control, and in your self-control, perseverance, and in your perseverance, godliness, and in your godliness, brotherly kindness, and in your brotherly kindness, love. For if these qualities are yours and are increasing, they render you neither useless nor unfruitful in the true knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ."
Wedged between faith and love is a list of qualities that are ours and are increasing by the Spirit, for the purpose of being useful and fruitful. Self control comes from knowledge of what is true and leads to perseverance. Because I know the truth, I can combat my emotional response to the situation and persevere in the correct path. This is the power of the Holy Spirit alive in me and anyone who calls on Him.
Hallelujah and amen.
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