Learning Opportunities

Spiritual Training Cycle: Submission (wk. 12/13)

Mark 14:66-72

My son is growing into quite the functional fitness athlete. Now, I don’t know where you stand on the whole “Is bench press a functional movement?” controversy, but no matter your stance, keep in mind that my 15-year-old High School Sophomore thinks it’s in. So, we like to bench.

A few weeks ago, things were looking good in the session, so we decided to try for a new PR. You could feel the tension in the gym rise as we loaded some more weight on the bar. I’ve been coaching and spotting the bench press for two decades, so let’s just say I have a sixth sense on if someone is going to have a successful rep.

And he looked solid. Until he didn’t. Attempt number one was a no-go. Along with attempt number two. But I just believed in all my heart that he had it. So we decided to make one more try. I put on his favorite Metallica song and cranked the volume to bring the mojo. He took the bar off the rack, had a good lift on the way down, and then on the way up, over the sounds of “The Memory Remains,” you could hear the roar of my son as he got his new PR. As we high fived and hugged, I told him, “Your first two attempts weren’t failures, they were learning opportunities.”

What do we learn when we fail in the gym? So many things. Like learning to try again. The voice in our head that tells us we can’t or we won’t learns to dial it down when we learn to try again. No failure, no learning opportunity.

We also learn not to be defined by failure. When someone asks what your one rep back squat is, you don’t reply with the weights you’ve failed. Failure does not define you, it refines you. That is, if you’ll let it.

And finally, we learn the value of failing. It’s ok to fail. You’re not going to PR all the time. But if you don’t see the value of failing, then you’re likely to hold yourself back. To “reign it in” more than you should. We learn so much when we fail in the gym.

When it comes to spiritual fitness, we can learn a lot from our failures too, including when we fail to have faith in God. Full disclosure, I’ve failed to have faith so many times. I wanted to trust God so bad and believe in His good plan for my life, but then I let worry in. Followed by anxiety. Followed by trying to figure it all out on my own. And if you’ve ever done that then you’re in good company like me. Because so did one of Jesus’ closest disciples. A guy named Peter.

Peter was having a rough night. He’d just watched Jesus get arrested and hauled off to be questioned and tried by the Jewish leaders. And he was scared. Even though Jesus had told Peter how the whole thing would go down, Peter let his fear and anxiety take over. So much so that he denied even knowing Jesus three times that night. By the way, Jesus told Peter that was going to happen too. God knew Peter’s faith would fail him. When our faith fails, it doesn’t make us a failure. Those moments are simply learning opportunities.

When we fail to keep our faith in God, we also learn a few things. First, we learn how good God really is. The Savior of the world already knows. He already knows you’re trusting your bank account. He already knows you’re gonna question if there’s even a God at all. And in those moments when you find yourself trusting in something other than Jesus, you see just how good God is because He never stops loving you.

We also learn that we weren’t meant to do it on our own. Isn’t that really the end game of losing faith or hope in God? That we end up trying to do it our way or in our time. Trust is the currency of any great relationship. So, when we lose trust in God, it’s like we’re ending the relationship. Which puts us back out there trying to find something else we can trust in.

Finally, we learn that God is ultimately in control. He’s architecting the whole thing. And our restoration to God through faith in Jesus helps us to better see just how in control He actually is. Which means we don’t have to wonder if we’re good with God. We are. He’s bigger than your failures. Even your failure to put your faith in Him.

Questions for Reflection:

What are some situations in your life where you lost trust in God?

What have you learned from failure?

In what areas could you trust God more?

Just Show Up

Spiritual Training Cycle: Submission (wk. 11/13)

Matthew 16:13-18

The start of a four-year journey

At the beginning of the Covid lock-down, my athletic wife got me started on my CrossFit journey.  The gym she was going to immediately pivoted to free Zoom classes. My life of travel as a business consultant had come to a screeching halt, I finally had time to get serious again about fitness, and I followed my wife’s lead on joining these on-line classes streamed to an iPad in our backyard.

I hid from my coach the first several weeks I did CrossFit

What I didn’t realize is that the coach didn’t just instruct us in a daily set of body-weight exercises, he actually wanted to watch us – via Zoom - do burpees, air squats, push-ups, sit-ups and a variety of other exercises.  At first, I tilted the iPad screen, or had it focus on my wife or anything I could so that the coach couldn’t see how bad I was at these exercises.  It became a reoccurring game of hide-and-seek between Coach Justin and this embarrassed participant.

Momentum builds slowly, creating a better future little by little

But, in the ensuing weeks and months, I slowly got back into shape.  Our gym re-opened, I found a community of friends who loved fitness, and I came to believe what Coach Justin had been saying all along: “just show up” – just show up and let the process work.

Four years later, I’m reaching fitness goals I haven’t reached in decades.  At the beginning of this year, I set two ambitious fitness goals for myself.  I hit the first one – a new bench-press PR - six months into the year.  My second goal is still in front of me, motivating me to just keep showing up.

Jesus prepared his friends and disciples for their future

Jesus spent three years molding a group of his followers into world-changers.  They didn’t know it at that time, but they were doing their own version of “just show up” as they spent time with Jesus, building momentum that would circle the globe in the next two thousand years.

As his earthly time with them was drawing to an end, Jesus asked these friends of his what they had learned about him.  Peter’s response?  “You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God.” (Matt. 16:16). Peter’s awareness was in some respects “the beginning of the end” of them just being followers of Jesus.  Now they were also being commissioned to be leaders of God’s new movement to change the world.

Faithfulness builds momentum

When Jesus’ disciples first responded to his call, I doubt any of them knew what was coming. He took a full three years of living with them and teaching them about his ways and who he was before he commissioned them to make disciples across the world.  Their faithfulness to him during those three years prepared them for the work he had for them in future.

Questions for reflection

What has your life with God taught you about who he is and how he works?

How can your faithfulness to God change the world around you and build even more momentum for his gospel?

Trust the Process

Spiritual Training Cycle: Submission (wk. 10/13)

Matthew 14:22-33

“Trust the process.” You’ve probably heard that at some point throughout your life. You may even say it to yourself when you start to question a challenge you’re facing, or you’re not seeing results from a fitness and nutrition program as quickly as you’d like. We get impatient, we want to take matters into our own hands, we want to take control of the situation. We get distracted from our own journey when we look to the right and left. We see others succeeding at a faster pace, we see someone who is faster, stronger, and fitter than us. We start to question the process when we take our eyes off our own path.

“Trust the programming” is something I’ve had to learn the hard way. I’ve trained for triathlons, marathons, body building, and CrossFit competitions all of which I’ve paid someone to coach and guide me to success. And historically I’ve strayed from the programming and the process because I got scared of taking a rest day even when it was built into my schedule, or I’d add another workout because what my coach wrote “wasn’t enough.” When I was living life by my AppleWatch if my activity ring wasn’t closed, I had to do another workout. Inevitably I would wind up over-trained, underfed, peaking my performance at the wrong time (before the race, not on the race day) and injured.

How can you trust the programming when you don’t even give it a chance? How did I learn to trust the programming after years of “kind of” following what my coaches suggested? Day by day I released control and placed my faith in knowing my coaches knew what they were doing. They knew what it took to coach an athlete. All I had to do was stick to the plan.

Faithfulness in a fitness program and in our spiritual life is a response. It’s active. It takes practice of letting go of trying to control everything and inviting God to lead us. Just as my coaches knew what to program for me to win a race or an event, God knows what you need to live a life according to his will and purpose for you. There’s even an entire how-to manual with God-breathed scripture to inspire us and show us the way. When we choose faithfulness every day, we demonstrate our trust that God is in control.

In Matthew 14:28-31, Peter struggled with the same distractions; fear of what was going on around him and losing control. Just to give you some background, Peter hung out with Jesus a lot. You’d think he would know that Jesus had his back, yet Peter doubted:

Then Peter called to him, “Lord, if it’s really you tell me to come to you, walking on the water.” “Yes, come,” Jesus said. So Peter went over the side of the boat and walked on the water towards Jesus. But when he saw the strong wind and the waves, he was terrified and began to sink. “Save me, Lord!” he shouted. Jesus immediately reached out and grabbed him. “You have so little faith,” Jesus said. “Why did you doubt me?” Matthew 14:28-31

Peter trusted Jesus, he stepped off the boat onto the water and started to walk towards Him. But once he took his eyes off Jesus and looked around him, he was flooded with fear. A few verses before this interaction takes place Jesus told Peter not to be afraid. But here Scripture says, “but when he saw that strong wind and the waves, he was terrified and began to sink.” How quickly he doubted the power of the Lord. Peter fixed his eyes on what was going on around him instead of keeping his focus on Jesus, the only one who could help him do the impossible, to walk on water.

God wants to do the impossible in our lives, but often like Peter we fix our eyes only on what we can control. We place our faith in unsteady, sinking material things and people instead of placing our faith in God. He knows what’s best, he wants us to have bold, big faith. He invites us into faithfulness “yes, come” and our response is to let go, let him lead, and trust the process.

Questions for Reflection:

What areas of your life have you been trying to control that leave you exhausted, over-trained, underfed, and injured?

What does it look like in a practical way to release control in those areas and hand it over to God? Who can you think of in your life who can walk alongside you to help you place your faith in God?