Finding Fitness.

Serious question, do you ever get tired of helping people? Or rather… trying to help people?  I feel like I’m constantly leading horses to water. Family and friends come to me complaining that they can’t lose fat, can’t gain muscle, and can’t overcome ailments like celiac and IBS…. They ask for advice. I tell them to stop eating processed foods, fast food, pasta, etc, and they almost always freak out and tell me how wrong I am. It’s like people just absolutely refuse to accept that their “beliefs” are wrong. So they continue on believing that eating meat is bad, eating bread and pasta with every meal is good, and running marathons is a sign of health and fitness.

Every time I’m at a dinner party, bbq, anything….someone always begs for the secret to health. I used to try and be their guiding light. Now, I just say “Lift heavy weights, do some sprints, sleep 8 hours and cut out gluten entirely. No, don’t cut out carbs completely. Gluten isn’t a carb. Here’s my business card.”
The reply is “I can’t do that.”
My reply is “You can, you just won’t.”

People don't get it. Either they're ignorant because they've never truly been in-shape, or never intellectually become a student of the iron game, or they follow the common knowledge on nutrition and exercise posted in newspapers and Men's Health, or they've been indoctinated into the current mirror-gazing fitness culture where appearance trumps performance. Where people want to look good but are weak, and don't care about their real-world capability. People go to the gym but don't ever make gains. Bro, do you even lift? Everyone wants to be fit, but no one wants to do the hard work.

I won't go further into a description of this straw man. I only raise the physical fitness issue because it's the same failing that the church has with spiritual fitness.

A lot of American christians are embarassments because they lack fitness: never really a student of the Bible or the Christ-like game, basing their worldview on common knowledge from the media, entertainment industry or that Comparative Religion 101 course they took during their liberal indoctrination at university, or mainstreamed into the mirror-gazing culture where appearance trumps performance. People go to church but never really evolve from who they were B.C. Everyone wants to be considered godly, but no one's doing the hard work.

Now, I understand that who I am in Christ is only a God-made reality – that I can't make any merit on my best day's effort. That said, who I am on the sidewalk, today, in the physical world, is a result of the dovetailled-overlap between What I've done to become/What God's graced me to be. The first I do have a hand in, by doing what is uncomfortable. And doing it on a daily basis.

I am pretty tired of people who want to be in spiritual shape but don't do any training. Sure, you can hope that God will strike you with spiritual lightning to ignite your soul, or survive on others' prayers for you, or nourish yourself on sermons and commentary like some baby bird eating predigested food from its mother's crop, but at some point you have to grow up and do your own chewing. You have to do some Bible reading for yourself. You have to pray when no one's holding your hand. You have to do something with your money besides make yourself happy. You have to do what everyone is capable of doing, but just won't. You have to deny yourself. Pick up your freaking cross and hike.

Which brings me to the song running through my head this week: Find Me by Margaret Becker. ... the live version is here. At the time, Elliston place was the skid row district of Nashville (since has undergone urban renewal and is now an upscale apartment and retail community) where Becker moved into a flat, put all of her furniture out on the sidewalk under "free - take me" signs, and waited for the Lord to meet her there in a new way.

I'm gonna move on down to Elliston
Let my hair grow wild and free
Rent a second story studio
Find the other side of me
I'm gonna sit out on the edge of the fire escape
Feel a little destitute
Search for the feelings that will help me remember
The love that I had for You

Find me, find me
I'll wait for You

I'm gonna give away my stereo
Give away my T.V.
I'm going back to essentials, a chair and a lamp
And the Book that You wrote to me
You see, I'm looking for the You that used to speak so clear
I'm looking for the me that had a heart to hear
And I'm looking for the passion that held me here
On the edge

You see, I'm looking for the me that I used to know
I'm looking for the love that was out of control
'Cause I feel a little cold here in the afterglow

I love the duality in the song. I want to find me - find that best me that is zealous for the things that make God's heart beat - and I want God to find me here in my needy moment… Just a crossroad where doing something drastic in the hopes that the doing will help God take you seriously and meet you halfway. I think I need to fast a bit this week and see if God finds me in a new way.