Athlete or Athlete

Reading: Colossians 3:1-17

I want to introduce you to a word you may not have heard before – homograph. Or at least not since elementary school! A homograph is a word that has two different meanings, but the same spelling. Let me give you a few examples. Take the word bat. Bat can be a tiny flying mouse or something you swing at a baseball. How about the word fine? Is that your mood for the day or a fee you owe for illegal parking? The only way to figure out the meaning of the word is to examine the context in which it’s used. The context reveals the definition. I believe the word “athlete” is also a homograph. While as a coach I use it to describe everyone who is working out, the truth is the word “athlete” doesn’t mean the same thing for every person. Let me give you two working definitions for “athlete” and some context behind their meaning.

First, there are what I call position athletes. Position athletes use the term to define their position, or identity, in life. They want so badly to be part of an athletic lifestyle and an athletic community it becomes how they define themselves. They’re excited to let the world know and see that they are an athlete. In order to maintain their identity as an athlete, they take on a performance-based approach in the gym. Their success or failure as an athlete is tied to how they perform. Don’t get me wrong, I think performance is great. But when your success is tied to performance, your view can become short-term, and full of lots of highs and lows.

Then, there are progress athletes. Progress athletes use the term to describe their journey of physical transformation. For them, athlete is a mindset, not an identity. Their success or failure is tied to their commitment. In other words, progress athletes are more about showing up every day than showing off every workout. Their struggles are proof something is happening, and it gives them a long-term view as to what those results might one day be.

There’s another word I want to discuss, although I’m hesitant to put it in writing, because it’s also a homograph. Two people can hear this word and define it very differently. The word is Christian. Just like there are position and progress athletes, there are position and progress Christians. Let me put some definitions around these really quick. Position Christians take on a similar performance-based approach in their spiritual lives. Again, there’s nothing wrong with performance or results, but defining who you are in the eyes of God based on your effort can put you in a pretty difficult spot. Some position Christians end up trying to please God believing because of their effort, He will bless them. Then when they don’t get the blessing they expected, they assume they didn’t do enough or pray enough or give enough money to the church. God doesn’t invite us into a transactional relationship with Him.

Instead, He invites us into a loving, grace filled relationship. The kind you want to be in long term, and that’s the view progress Christians hold. Just as there’s transformation in our physical lives, progress Christians know there’s also transformation in our spiritual lives. They define their relationship with God based on commitment, not effort. Another word for commitment would be faith. Progress Christians have faith even when things aren’t going the way they want, a.k.a. struggles, something good is still resulting from it in the long term.

As we grow in our spiritual lives, we need to look for more homographs. I’m convinced they’re all around us. We need to expand our view of words, specifically those used to define individuals or groups of people. We need to understand not everyone who wears our label holds our view, and you know what, that’s ok. At the end of the day our love for God and for one another will prove to the world who we are. And as the classic Beatles song goes, “…love is all you need.”

Questions for Reflection:

Do you agree or disagree the word Christian has different meanings to different people? What does it mean to you?

Paul calls the Colossians to “put on love.” What does that look like in our present day?

Threshold

Reading: 1 Thessalonians 5:12-24

Over the years, I’ve reaped the benefits of interval training. An incredibly simple concept, but infinitely complex at the same time, interval training is simply going hard then taking it easy. It’s simple in that all it takes is the ability to push yourself. Yet it’s complex in that intervals can take on all shapes, sizes, and flavors. There may be as many combinations of intervals as there are people on the planet. As sports science has evolved, tools have been developed to make interval training more precise. Along with these tools came the introduction of training zones. Zones tell an athlete how hard to push. The higher the zone, the more effort required. Hidden inside every zone training program is this little gem called threshold. Once an athlete exceeds their threshold, the amount of time they can hold the interval becomes limited, but the resulting fitness is quite the opposite.

Think of threshold like a fulcrum balancing a seesaw. On one side you have comfort and on the other side is discomfort. Intervals are designed to push the body into discomfort. As your body expends energy in order to produce the required response to the stimulus, you move from being comfortable to being uncomfortable. Once you remove the stimulus, your body starts to recover and the seesaw shifts back to the comfort side. And every time you do, you’re passing through threshold. As you train more and get to know your body better, you’ll become aware this is happening, and you can start to use a portion of your workouts to stay at, or slightly above threshold. Comfort becomes the indicator because comfort is the first sign of decline.

A little caveat – comfort isn’t necessarily a bad thing. You’ve probably seen those motivational quotes that say something like, “comfort is the enemy.” Well, not necessarily. Webster has like eight different definitions of comfort, so you kind of need to know what comfort you’re dealing with. I think the motivational guys are trying to say something more like, “complacency is the enemy,” or, “not ever challenging yourself is the enemy.” When I talk about comfort in the fitness sense, I’m using it as an awareness tool. Is the athlete aware they are comfortable and is that where they want to be? If the answer is yes, then by all means be comfortable. Comfort is where we rest, recover, regenerate, and regroup for tomorrow’s WOD. But if comfort is where you think you go to get fit, think again. The journey of physical fitness is marked by the well-worn path from comfort to discomfort.

The journey of spiritual fitness is the same. If you want to grow spiritually, you’ve got to do a little interval training and get uncomfortable. In 1 Thessalonians 5:12-24, the Apostle Paul offers 17 different spiritual intervals. That’s right, 17 different ways to push you out of your comfort zone. Here’s an example. In verse 14, he writes, “be patient with everyone.” What would it look like for you to ask God to give you the power to be patient with everyone for a full 24 hours? And no, vacations don’t count. Ok, maybe 24 hours is too long of an interval, what about 12 hours or the next Zoom call or when the in-laws come over? Start applying some interval training to your spiritual life and get ready for God to do new things. It won’t happen overnight, but it will never happen if you stay comfortable.

Questions for Reflection:

Design a spiritual interval workout for someone struggling with pride. What does comfort look like for a prideful person and what would push them out of their comfort zone?

Think about your own comfort zone. How do you think it developed?

As Prescribed

Reading 1 Kings 3:1-15

Part of growing into the sport of CrossFit is learning the language, and believe me, CrossFit has a language all its own. Now, if you’re not a CrossFitter, fear not. I’m going to translate some concepts back into their English root forms, so everyone is on the same page! Two letters form the backbone of every CrossFit workout – “R” and “X.” A seemingly unlikely combination, since you can’t really make a word out of them. But put together, they describe a term more commonly known in the medical community as “Rx,” or “as prescribed.”

Every medicine you get from a doctor comes with a prescription. Whether digital or printed, your healthcare provider tells the pharmacy what medicine you are to take, the dose, and the dosing regimen. This is printed on your handy little pill bottle just in case you forget. When you follow the instructions from your doctor, you are taking your medicine as prescribed. In CrossFit, Rx is a similar set of instructions provided for the workout. Just like your medicine has a dose, most workouts have a weighted movement. The weight “prescribed” will be listed next to the movement. What most people don’t realize is that the specified weight is only one part of an Rx workout. Everything else written in the workout, including the time in which it must be completed, is also Rx. Just like the medicine you take, the goal of the workout is to make you better. In CrossFit, we define this as increased work capacity across broad time and modal domains, also known as fitness.

What amazes me is how obsessive people become about the work. In other words, the work becomes the goal, or rather, trying to Rx the workout becomes the goal. Can you imagine doing the same thing with your antibiotic medicine? Could you see yourself becoming so focused on the dosing regimen you no longer care about getting better? Could you imagine posting your daily medicine routine to your social media feed and then wondering if everyone else taking the same antibiotic as you took it as prescribed? Yet athletes do this in the gym every day. The goal of the workout isn’t the workout. The goal is increased work capacity.

Capacity is the name of the game, not just in the gym, but also in life. The greater your capacity, the greater your performance. One of the reasons CrossFit translates so well into building spiritual fitness is that it’s constantly varied. It’s varied on purpose to build capacity to do many things. The beautiful thing is that’s what people are looking for in their everyday lives as well. They want to build capacity to do many things. Things like being present and not distracted by technology. Things like not letting their performance at work define them. Things like being generous with their time and talent. All of these can be achieved as a result of building spiritual fitness. You just need to increase your spiritual capacity.

And that all starts with daily and weekly habits, the work, if you will. Habits like prayer and Bible reading and meditation and community groups are all places where you’re giving God space to grow your spiritual capacity. Think of these habits like time in the gym, only you’re not in the gym, you’re spending time with God. And this is where God is transforming you, renewing you from the inside out. It’s not about moments of spiritual capacity, it’s about the momentum of God’s capacity to expand yours. The result? A spiritually fit life. Whether physical or spiritual fitness, don’t let the work be your goal. Live into the belief that capacity will ultimately determine the outcomes.

Questions for Reflection:

Do you find it difficult to keep the big picture in mind when you’re training in the gym? Have you developed any tips or techniques to maintain focus?

Building spiritual fitness requires time with God. How have you structured your life to make space for spiritual transformation?