Physical Training

(my birthday is right before the turn of the year so all this hits my mind double)

Physical Training

A new year brings out the best in people.  More accurately, it seems to bring out the best intentions in people! Crowds flock to the local gym or the roads to lift, run, ride and train.  Diet books arrive in smiling Amazon boxes up and down the block.  Running shoes, bike shorts and yoga pants are hard to keep in stock at the local department store.  Yes…people take stock of their health when the calendar turns and many do make a lasting change and become healthier for it. If you are one of these people, I salute you!

“For physical training is of some value, but godliness has value for all things, holding promise for both the present life and the life to come.”  1 Timothy 4:8

What about the rest of the person that is you?  The YMCA, for example, is built on the premise that a healthy spirit, mind and body are ALL required for a full life.  Are you working on those other aspects as well?  Why not commit to learning a new skill or tackling that reading list you’ve been working on?  Why not get your life and financial matters in order?  And why not recommit to an intentional pursuit of deeper knowledge of God?  Read your Bible daily, take notes during the sermon on the weekend and listen to it again during the week on podcast or video if you can.  Get in a small group where you can go deeper into the truth of the Gospel message. 

Be just as excited and vigilant about your faith as you are about your fitness…it has “value for all things!”

Thanks for all you do.

Brian

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Volume 7, Number 33

The Point of Work

(work is not meant to be merely a means to an end)

The Point of Work

Most of us work…or did… or plan to someday. My daughters frequently talk about what they want to be “when they grow up”. It’s a fun conversation of course, but it’s really career planning at its earliest stages. Finding the intersection of what you like to do, what you’re good at and what provides sufficient remuneration is a process that some get right the first time, and others jump around for years trying to find.

“The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it.” Genesis 2:15

Why do we work though; beyond the need to fill time and fill our bank accounts?  Work is divinely appointed; we are made for work.  When God finished creating the heavens and earth he didn’t state that it was perfect, he said that it was “very good.”  Creation was not meant to be static like a diorama filled with paper-mache cows and pigs.  Nor was it meant to be a zoo with plants and animals on display. Rather it was designed to be an active and changing ecosystem; one that required oversight and management.  Adam and Eve were in paradise, but they weren’t supposed to lie in hammocks all day feeding each other grapes!  They had an important delegated task to undertake.

“Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men” Colossians 3:23

Work hard.  Give it your best. It’s what you were made to do!

Thanks for all you do.

Brian

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Volume 7, Number 32