Excercise To Be Ready

Okay, so this may be the fourth time I have started a post in two days. I wanted to share with you my exercise routine, just as I said I would in my "Summer Bucket List" post. But I feel the LORD is leading me down another path with this topic. Not to share in endless, boring detail of how I try to keep in shape. I feel the LORD wants me to focus more on what motivates me to work my body, pushing it to it's limits on a daily basis...

I've never been an athletic person. In fact my clumsy, awkward self could easily be labeled as "athletically challenged".

Up until this past year, the most strenuous sort of exercise I had ever done was walking, with running thrown in here and there. After getting married in April of 2013, and thinking that I may have been pregnant three months later (if I was, I miscarried quickly), health has become very important to me. Primarily for these two reasons...

~I want to serve my LORD in whatever capacity HE needs me to.

 

~ I want to keep my body in tip top shape for a possible pregnancy.

 

 

Let me explain each. First off with being able to serve my LORD.

 

GOD wants us to be willing and able to serve HIM, when and wherever HE calls us. Regular exercise helps keep our bodies in good, working order. A LOT of  health problems can be alleviated if we would all just get up and move. Not only can it aid in keeping away sickness, it is great for improving flexibility, joint mobility, and strength. Typically when our bodies aren't moving, they become stale, and begin to deteriorate.

 

Shouldn't we help keep our bodies running smoothly, for our LORD?

 What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own?

For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God's.

1 Corinthians 6:19-20

 

My second reason can go with my first. I want to bear a child someday, LORD willing. And I want to give that child the best possible start by keeping it's first home, my body, in proper, working order. Pregnancy and child birth, is one LONG workout I have been told. I want to train my body, so it can be ready to prayerfully be a healthy environment for them.

 

 

She girdeth her loins with strength, and strengtheneth her arms.

Proverbs 31:17

 

She looketh well to the ways of her household, and eateth not the bread of idleness.

Proverbs 31:27

 

So, what form of torture exercise do I subject my body to?

 

I stick with two types, that I personally enjoy, on a weekly basis: Running/walking intervals and weight training

 

I try to walk/run 30-45 minutes 5-6 days a week. It's great cardio conditioning, and it gets me outdoors in GOD's beautiful creation. :D

 

Our home weight set, set up in our spare room for working out in privacy.

 

I do weight training 4 days a week. And I mean WEIGHT training (the big stuff). I target certain muscle groups daily, and change up what exercises I do, every few weeks (always trying to go up in weight). It may seem weird a woman would love weigh lifting, but for me, I've always loved lifting heavy objects, and thinking I'm all big and strong. It may have something to do with an issue called pride. Yeah, trying to work on that one... ;)

 

I have learned something through all this work, as well. That at the end of the day, even though I have worked my tail off, trying to be "fit", it can be all for nothing.

 

For bodily exercise profiteth little: but godliness is profitable unto all things, having promise of the life that now is, and of that which is to come.

This is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptation.

1 Timothy 4:8-9

 

That's right. Even though we can spend a ton of time being ready physically to serve our LORD, it means NOTHING if we aren't working to prepare for the life to come.

 

Just as we need to spend time  keeping our bodies healthy, we need to spend MORE time keeping our spirits healthy. By reading HIS word, and bowing down on our knees on a daily basis, drawing ever closer to HIS side.

 

I don't know about you, but that's not always easy for me. I get caught up in this physical realm so often, that the spiritual is often left behind. It's quite discouraging. But I have this promise...

 

He giveth power to the faint; and to them that have no might he increaseth strength.

 Even the youths shall faint and be weary, and the young men shall utterly fall:

 But they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint.

Isaiah 40:29-31

 

Thank-you LORD for the strength, YOU ALONE give...

 

What sort of exercise do you enjoy?

 

Have a wonderfully blessed day everyone! Thanks for stopping by!

Angel