I think this is my life theme. God continues to throw this motif at me every possible chance He gets, and boy do I need it! I heard it in my readings in Proverbs, at my personal training workshop, and even at work. I think I get it. The problem is applying it!
So, as you can imagine, the reason for my lack of posting is my busyness. I have been going nonstop for months. Pretty much since April. Let me do a quick recap. We went on vacation over Easter Break, where I was challenged to keep my mouth shut and pray about something, and I didn’t, so I swallowed my foot, not just sticking it my mouth mind you… Luckily, I have gracious friends. So on vacation we went to California where we got to eat fabulous pie in Julian, went to Adventure City in Anaheim, visited a different but great Calvary Chapel in Temecula, went wine tasting (Chloe didn’t do that), visited some great friends (Elinor and the Spencer’s), went to the beach, revisited Camp Pendleton, ate some great food, and played with awesome kids! It was a much needed break!
May was also another busy month, Paul learned that he had to take another pay cut. He was blessed to go on a great Men’s retreat in the beginning of the month. He had the opportunity to fellowship and meet a lot of great men. God really moved in his heart, he said. I learned yet another valuable lesson because I made some more mistakes that again hindered the growth of another relationship with my lack of discernment and my thoughts, not so much my mouth this time. However, I also went on a women’s retreat, and was forced to slow down, which lead me to the words of wisdom to rectify the situation. If only I would have turned to Him first and really looked at all angles of the situation, I would have seen the error in my ways to begin with, what a novel idea, right?! I was blessed with gaining new sisters in Christ that prayed over me and now have a better sense of community with our congregation.
June, what a month this has been! First off, my mouth got me in trouble for the third time. Again, thanks to graceful friends, I was forgiven. (I then studied Proverbs and got all kinds of insight and wisdom about holding the tongue.) Paul found out that he also had to take a week of unpaid vacation in July. His company did, however, pay for his tuition reimbursement for the summer months, so that was a huge blessing. The next day, we lost Paul’s grandfather, which has brought a multitude of feelings out for all of us. I did not deal with it well at all. Good fruit has not poured out from my tipped cup. Satan has had huge victories in my life. I think this really was the final straw to the realization that I need to do something about my lack of spiritual discipline. I have harbored so much anger, rage, unforgiveness, judgement, bitterness, pride, and lets not forget self righteousness in the past couple of months. If I would have evangelized to an unbeliever about Christ, they would have nothing to do with being part of our family in Christ.
This past weekend was BIG for me… I mean really BIG. I went to an NASM personal training workshop in Arlington, VA. God brought people into my life who taught me how to train effectively for life goals,and little did they know they were teaching me a spiritual lesson of endurance as well. In NASM they stress that Core Stability and maintaining postural alignment in all you do is absolutely paramount. If you can’t stick to the basics, you have no right to advance. You have to do it slowly. If you move to quick, and compromise that one foundation, not only will you not train effectively, but you are setting yourself up to get hurt and regress. Sound familiar, check out Hebrews 12. If we forget the spiritual disciplines,which are the fundamentals of Christianity, we will not receive the prize of faith! Good stuff, huh?!?
Just like the body, one compensation from the truth, causes major catastrophe to the whole body. (I am amazed at how they corralate, God is such an awesome creator!) So, in personal training, we need to take an initial assessment of where we are at, find out what our goals are (not just the ultimate ones, but small ones too), put a plan together of how we are going to achieve them, and make a realistic time line of what fruit we would like to see. Then, we have to start at the fundamentals, working on our core, the basic disciplines, then we can add other things into our routine. However, if our core isn’t strong, we have to step back, reasses, stretch out the impedences and over compensations that are hindering us from functioning properly as God made us to work.
I have made some huge assessments these last few days. I have decided my goals are to exercise the gifts of encouragement and intercession that God has given me a passion for. I will achieve these goals by setting a very strict schedule and diet (spiritually, mentally, and nutritionally). I have been in a Monthly Challenge with some women in church, and I think I am going to kick it up a notch. My realistic goal is to study the Word for at least an hour 5 days out of the week, pray 30 mins 5 days every week, do resistance training 3 days a week, at least 45 minutes of cardio 5 days out of the week, eat the required amounts of calories 6 days a week, and log it. In 4 weeks I will be reassessing my plan and goals to make sure my core foundations are aligned properly! (Does the turtle have his good core stability to carry his load?) HA!
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