Break Down to Build Up

Posted on October 1, 2008 12:00 AM MST by Tiffany Kinerson

"Then the master called the servant in. ‘You wicked servant,’ he said, ‘I canceled all that debt of yours because you begged me to. Shouldn’t you have had mercy on your fellow servant just as I had on you?’ In anger his master turned him over to the jailers to be tortured, until he should pay back all he owed.

"This is how my heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother from your heart." Matthew 18:32-35

Today when I reached up to put the filter in my coffee basket, my bicep ached so badly I could hardly get my arm up there. And then as I scrunched back down to fill up the carafe, my abs growled at me for moving them so. I shook my half-n-half in spite of loud protests from my pectorals and triceps. And then I endured more bellyaching from my biceps to lift my coffee mug to my lips.

Yep, you probably guessed it. Yesterday I worked out. Arms and abs, to be specific. And this may have been my first time in four months to lift weights, but we’re not going to dwell on that. But what we will dwell on is the interesting fact I learned at the gym. You have to say that in a deep, manly voice by the way. None of this girly "…and five, six, seven, eight" stuff when you’re talking about weights. It’s the GYM. Manly. Anyway, did you know that it’s best to take a few days off between working out certain muscles?

I’m not by any means a trainer and you can certainly tell me I’m wrong on this. But the way I understand it, when you work out your muscles, you give them little tiny tears all over. And then the next day you feel sore. And you can’t drink your coffee. But you power through it because that’s the kind of person you are. My experts tell me (okay, maybe those are really my husband and my football-wielding brother) that this is a good thing. And you should expect the soreness for a good two days. They say that two days of soreness, also, is a good thing. Because what’s happening in that time is strength. Strength in pain?

No, really. You rip up your muscles and then they build themselves back stronger. So what you need to do to make yourself Mr. America (which I might want to do if I really wanted to call the gym the GYM with my steroid-free voice) is workout the same group of muscles once every three days. Hmm....

So I was preparing for a Sunday School lesson yesterday when I came across the passage above. And I thought, "Whoa. That’s pretty harsh." Then I thought about taking out the final verse since it didn’t seem to fit into my picture of a loving, gracious God—you know that God that is so enthralled by your beauty He tells you about it in every verse of the Bible and most definitely in Himself through Jesus Christ? Yeah, Him.

Well after I came to my senses about Him, I remembered my workout, and it made me question my pansy view of God. Because here I was broken down and beaten (self-mutilated, maybe, but you have to work with me here), walking in torture until I grew back stronger three days later. And I thought maybe that’s the way it is in God’s world, too. You wimp out and avoid the gym of forgiveness or righteousness or love until you suddenly realize you’ve got flab hanging from your soul. And you get angry and snap at people or you start cheating on your taxes or just lying to make your story sound better.

Then one day your Friend calls you up, He says, "Let’s go to the GYM." And He says it this way because He is pretty strong and He’s got, what I think is a very manly voice. Then when you accept His offer, He puts all this weight on your bar until you can’t lift your arm enough to point fingers at anyone else.

And you cry out. "Dear God, I can’t do this alone. I need to forgive but I don’t know how." Then Your Heavenly spotter pulls the barbell of discipline off your chest. And you breathe freely again. And He picks you up. He says, "This is the way, walk in it."

Your legs wobble with fatigue as you take the first step toward righteousness and He whispers in your ear. "You will be stronger, now. Just wait and see." And like a good workout, you know at some level that He’s telling the truth. You may hurt right now but in time you will be the Mr. America of Christ followers. That’s pretty exciting. And, just think, with God as your lifting partner, how can you go wrong?

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