Ten days ago was National Exercise Day but, just like exercise, I put it off because I was too busy writing about other things. Well, let’s not put it off any longer. Let’s start the work week talking about our need for some exercise.
For some, the aversion to exercise may stem from a false notion that exercise means we need to get a gym membership to Planet Fitness. We see rows of treadmills, ellipticals, stair climbers, stationary and recumbent bikes being used by sweaty, water-guzzling enthusiasts. Machines that work your biceps, triceps, glutes, quads, and pecs intimidate us, especially when you see some who are buff and ripped, flexing after their workout. We don’t want to embarrass ourselves by asking if there is a setting below the lowest. Several machines are available to strengthen your core – something they say you have but you aren’t sure where it’s kept!
Growing up, the “gym” was for athletes and yuppies, and I was neither. Country kids — farm kids didn’t go to the gym. They went to the barn. They threw hay and straw bales. They carried buckets of water and bags of feed and grain. They walked fields. They wrenched on equipment. And they did it all in jeans, t-shirts, boots, and ball caps – not the flimsy frou-frou shorts, water-wicking shirts, and specialized tennis shoes.
Good intentions at the beginning of the year are often derailed by busyness, distractions, and life in general. Every time you see your doctor for something, they ask, “Do you exercise? Do you walk?” Did you know that this is no joking matter with your doctor? I tell them, “Yes, I walk every day.” They are impressed with that answer and it’s their own fault that they lose that impression because they are the ones who ask for details. Evidently, it doesn’t count as exercise that I walk from my truck to the door, from the couch to the kitchen, from the kitchen to my desk, up the stairs and down the stairs, etc. Oh, and I also walk up and down the steps of my bus, five days a week, twice a day. Hey, they just asked if I walked. I didn’t lie. Nobody has volunteered to carry me to these places, therefore, I walk. Enough said and end of subject!
We are told in 1 Timothy 4:8, “For bodily exercise profiteth little…” The Bible doesn’t say that it’s not profitable. It’s just not nearly as profitable as a different kind of exercise we need. Paul finishes out the verse by saying, “but godliness is profitable unto all things, having promise of the life that now is, and of that which is to come.” The previous verse, 1 Timothy 4:7 says, “But refuse profane and old wives’ fables, and exercise thyself rather unto godliness.”
The Greek word for “exercise” is gumnazo. We get the word gymnasium from this. There is a unique feature, though, to the original word. Only men went to the gym and they worked out au naturel. The idea is to strip oneself of anything that would hinder the workout. As we exercise ourselves to godliness, we are hitting “God’s gym” and we must strip ourselves of all that is ungodly.
Another aspect of our hitting the gym is found in Hebrews 5:14. “But strong meat belongeth to them that are of full age, even those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil.” Who would have ever thought eating plays a part in exercise? According to Scripture, though, we have to feast on the strong meat of God’s Word in order to exercise our senses. We want to always be able to immediately detect good and evil.
A final exercise is one my dad used on me occasionally. Hebrews 12:11 says, “Now no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous: nevertheless afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby.” Do you remember getting exercised by some chastening? As we learn from it, it produces good things in our lives.
Maybe we need to go to the gym today – God’s gym — and get the exercise we need. Let’s desire to share in Paul’s affirmation found in Acts 24:16. “And herein do I exercise myself, to have always a conscience void of offence toward God, and toward men.”
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