church//gym: entry 09

before this week, i had gone to the gym, like 90 times in a row, without missing a day. (my gym is closed on Sundays). but last week i missed 2 days for my missions trip and this week i missed 2 days for my breakfast club and to help Deanna watch jane. so this morning when i woke up i had a choice: do i miss 3 days in a row? it was really tempting. it would have been easy to say that i’ve been there so many times already, what’s another day? but then again, once you miss 2 days, its easy to miss 3 and 4. plus, who would notice?
this is what we all face when the decision to go to church or not rests with us. once you’re in a situation where no one will really notice if you go or not, it can be really tempting to just stay in bed and miss a week. its easy to justify it and say that you’ve already gone so many times before.
well i went, and it was hard, but i’m glad that i did.


another thought:


i go to this kettlebell class- and its hard. not because the kettlebells are heavy, but because its hard to get my body in the right position to do the exercises. i’m usually the only one in the class, so eddie the instructor just watches me and corrects me. so there i am, lifting this weight, or passing it around my legs and eddie is there saying, “butt-back. chest up. feet straight. butt back! head up. butt back! open your stance. keep your head still! butt back!” it gets to the point where i’m twisted into this weird position lifting weights, and dying. so i think i’m going to quit the class- not because the weight is heavy, but because eddie is all up in my grill all the time!


and again, i think that church is fun, as long as we feel that everyone stays out of our business. but once we get called on our mistakes and corrected, it starts getting uncomfortable. will we quit or improve? will we listen to our trainers, or just go work out somewhere else?


last thought:


again, i missed 4 days in the last 2 weeks. and the people at the gym noticed. when i walked in, several of my friends noticed, greeted me, and expressed that they missed seeing me. it made me want to make sure that i don’t miss another day anytime soon!


what a great example to all of us who see people each wee that haven’t been to church in awhile. instead of beating them up, we can be excited to see them and motivate them to get plugged back in.


“let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds. let us not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but let us encourage one another—and all the more as you see the Day approaching.”
-hebrews 10