Posture

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

Reading: Micah 6:1-8

Football season is in full swing here at our house. From the NCAA to the NFL, if there’s a pigskin involved, it’s probably on a screen in some room somewhere. It’s also in full swing for our middle son, Jack. Jack is starting his second year of football and really enjoying it. At least he was until an old back injury flared up. It’s hard to watch your kids hurt. Fortunately, I have a good friend who’s a chiropractor and was able to get Jack in for an evaluation. After going through all the tests to rule out any neurological issues, he turned his attention to the muscles and tissues. With his assessment complete, the doctor casually remarked, “Most of the students I see for back pain have bad posture.”

The dreaded “p” word. Who can’t recall their mom shoving a hand in the low back declaring the phrase, “sit up straight.” Certainly, Jack can. Because his mom is all about it. In fact, right after the doctor dropped the “p” word, he looked at me and we both smiled. It was like a grin when you know you’re busted. The doctor was right. Slouching and slumping are hallmark signs of being a teenage boy, and Jack is no exception. But he knew those days needed to be numbered. If he was going to get back in the game, he had to change his posture.

Posture plays a huge role in performance. In the gym we call it position. It’s not uncommon to hear coaches using terms like stacked, braced, power, or organized. They are all describing an athlete with good position. When new athletes start, the first thing we look at is their position. Even in the warmup a good coach can spot faulty position. The coaching cue for correcting position is easy. Change your posture. Good posture equals good position.

What about our spiritual posture? How should we come before God? Scripture says we are to humble ourselves before the Lord and He will exalt us (James 4:10). It starts with humility. Humility is meekness, lowliness, and absence of self. It is an inward heart attitude that expresses itself outwardly in how we treat others and view ourselves. Humility is how we approach God. When we recognize that our selfishness and self-centered ways can’t be resolved on our own, we begin the journey of humility. As we become devoted to Jesus, His death and resurrection provides a full restoration to God, something we could never do ourselves. Humility is an essential discipline in living a godly life. It is freedom from pride. Without humility, you may consider yourself a follower of Jesus, but your life won’t reflect it.

Humility is not just a discipline, it’s also a posture.

Humility is not just a discipline, it's also a posture.

Micah 6:8 says we’re to walk humbly with God. Walking humbly is not taking a stroll around the neighborhood with hunched shoulders and a head hung low. In fact, confidence and humility are not at odds with one another. We can live our lives with great humility by being confident that God is in control and we are not. The posture of humility is where we are most receptive to God and least focused on ourselves. Walking humbly means that who we are as human beings is built on the foundation of selflessness, not selfishness. Our posture of humility should be easy to see by those around us. It’s not about what we bring to God. It’s about how we show up to allow God to move in our life and reorder it. Humility is evidence of our spiritual fitness.

Questions for Reflection:

What does it mean to humble yourself before the Lord?

If humility is evidence of our spiritual fitness, what can we do to develop it?

Discipline

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

Reading: Deuteronomy 8:1-5

Long before the first plate goes on the barbell or the first drop of sweat hits the mat floor. Long before someone checks out a gym on-line or starts to get recommendations on where they should work out. At a point in the life of everyone who begins a journey of physical fitness, something ignites a desire. The lives we live are birthed from our collective desires. In today’s culture, desire can have a somewhat negative connotation, almost like a guilty pleasure we know we shouldn’t have. When I say desire, I’m talking about your core motives. Your desires are the set of images, goals, and thoughts that drive the output of your life. For athletes, that output is known as discipline.

It’s funny to link desire and discipline in the same sentence because no doubt some of you were raised in a home where your desire did give way to discipline. Only it was punishment for something you did wrong. You desired to sneak out, so you were disciplined by being grounded. In the athletic mindset, discipline is not something that happens to you as a result of being bad or breaking the rules. Although burpees may feel that way sometimes. Discipline, or rather disciplines, are the ordered ways in which we live our lives. They are the practices, or habits, that fuel the journey to reach our desires.

Think of some of the disciplines you practice in pursuit of physical fitness. My biggest one this year has been consistency in the gym. And what a fight that is sometimes! But I know my best life comes from the discipline of consistency and so I make it a priority. For some of you, it’s the discipline of quality rest. When Netflix beckons or Instagram buzzes, it can be hard to shut it down for some quality shut eye. Rest, however, is essential to optimal performance, so you power off the TV or put your phone in sleep mode instead. For others of you, it’s the discipline of clean eating. Sugary sweets and crunchy carbs are powerful forces, but garbage in equals garbage out. Without these disciplines, you may consider yourself an athlete, but your life won’t reflect it. Fitness is the destination, and discipline is what gets you there.

In spiritual fitness, exercises such as prayer and Bible reading are part of our disciplines. But so are our emotions and attitudes. We “train” these by allowing the Spirit of God to develop new attitudes and emotions within us. Including humility. Humility is meekness, lowliness, and absence of self. It is an inward heart attitude that expresses itself outwardly in how we treat others and view ourselves. Humility is how we approach God. When we recognize that our selfishness and self-centered ways can’t be resolved on our own, we begin the journey of humility. As we become devoted to Jesus, His death and resurrection provides a full restoration to God, something we could never do ourselves. Humility is an essential discipline in living a godly life. It is freedom from pride. Without humility, you may consider yourself a follower of Jesus, but your life won’t reflect it. Shalom is the destination and humility is what gets you there.

Without humility, you may consider yourself a follower of Jesus, but your life won't reflect it.

Don’t think of humility as simply an attitude anymore. Think of it as a spiritual discipline, something you train and prioritize. Let it order the way in which you live your life. Let it lead you to put others before yourself, and give glory to God for all the great things in your life. This is how you pursue shalom.

Questions for Reflection:

How has God humbled you?

Think of someone in your life who has great humility. Other than “humble,” how would you describe them?

Community

Spiritual Training Cycle: Perspective (wk. 9/13)

Reading: Nehemiah 8:1-12

What draws people to CrossFit? First, there’s the name and brand itself. With over 14,000 gyms globally and an estimated 2 million athletes in the program, it’s become harder to avoid CrossFit or one of us talking about it. CrossFit also has the games, part of which was televised on CBS. Even a few couch potatoes flipping channels now know about CrossFit. Then you have the style of exercise. Because CrossFit is constantly varied and performed at high intensity, it creates both a sense of mystery as well as accomplishment. Many of the gyms wait to post the next day’s workouts until the night before, adding to the anticipation of what’s to come. But what keeps people in CrossFit? While some of these might apply, I think it has more to do with the outcomes. As athletes achieve new levels of fitness and build new skills, it creates a desire to see how much further they can go. All this notwithstanding, I believe the number one thing CrossFit brings to the table is community.

Community is an essential part of the CrossFit culture. In a 2011 interview with Fast Company, the former CEO highlighted the importance of group dynamics in CrossFit, calling special attention to the community aspect. And every gym develops their own unique culture and distinct community. As those athletes suffer together, encourage one another, and share their personal stories taking place outside the gym, something happens that can’t be replicated by training on your own. Community is key.

Community is vitally important to each of us because it is an essential piece of humanity’s design. We were designed to be in community. In the opening chapter of the book of Genesis, God says, “Let us make humanity in our image, in our likeness” (Genesis 1:26). Notice the plural language. God the Father exists eternally in community with the Son and the Spirit. It’s a community thing. And then a chapter later, God tells us it’s not good for man to be alone, and He creates a soul mate for Adam. Marriage is a community thing. It is healthy and natural for all of us to seek community because we were created for it.

That’s why it’s important for part of our worship to be done in community. Worship is the giving of our entire self, our thoughts, and our emotions to God’s use. It’s a state of our heart. The word itself means, “the quality of being worthy.” When we worship, we are saying that God is worthy. He is worthy of our praise. Praise from both our bodies and our souls. The result, or effect, of worship is a renewal of the mind, transforming us more and more into the image of Christ.

In today’s Bible reading, Ezra the priest calls the people to gather for the public reading of Scripture, a core component of community worship. As Ezra reads the Book of the Law of Moses, the people, “lifted their hands and responded, ‘Amen! Amen!’ Then they bowed down and worshiped the LORD with their faces to the ground” (Nehemiah 8:6). Here, we see an example of what it looks like to worship in community. The renewal of our mind as a result of worship is incomplete without community.

The renewal of our mind as a result of worship is incomplete without community.

Community worship helps us experience the presence of God more completely. We each worship God as the Holy Spirit leads us to. Yet there are distinctives in the way we worship. Some may choose to raise their hands, while others open their palms to Heaven signifying submission to God. As more people gather and worship God in their own way, the presence of God is experienced more fully, deepening our intimacy with Jesus. Community worship also allows us to experience the praise of God more powerfully. When all the people responded in agreement with Ezra, there was power in their praise. One voice crying out to God is strong, but 20 or 200 or 2000 is exponentially more powerful. It gives us a taste of Heaven while here on the Earth.

So don’t just train in community, worship with them. The path to spiritual fitness passes right through community worship. There you will find deep friendships and a richer sense of purpose in life. There you will find Shalom.

Questions for Reflection:

What has been your experience with community worship?

Where does community worship fit within your spiritual exercise program?