20 Pounds Later

I have been the exact same weight for the last 20 or so years. At 5' 11" I weighed 148 pounds. That is up until November of 2009 when I made a conscious choice to change all that.

Starting in August of 2009 I began to go through an extremely difficult period of my life. It was definitely the most trying time I've ever gone through. By November it was in full swing and I was very depressed and hopeless. Eventually I'll elaborate on that whole season of despair, but not now.

The circumstances in my life began to unravel and fall apart. I felt like a character in a cartoon who's driving a car, pulls too hard and the steering wheel comes off.  They then careen helplessly out of control and drive off a cliff. Situations for me were nothing I could control and I was starting to lose what little sanity I had left.

One night during this time I felt this deep urge to go to the clubhouse in our subdivision and use the weight lifting equipment. I'm not sure why, but I remember just wanting to let my frustrations out and the thought of pushing very hard against something felt so right.

So I went down to what was at the time, a pretty lame excuse for a weight room and pushed, pulled and lifted a few different pieces of equipment. I had no clue what I was doing and it's a good thing I didn't pull or strain something. It only lasted for about 10 minutes, but it felt good both physically and mentally.

I quickly decided that this was exactly what I needed to release all of my inner pain, anger and frustration. Also, in the process, I would use it to achieve a life-long desire of bulking up my body to go from skinny to fit.

Not knowing where to start or how to go about it properly, I just did what I had heard a friend tell me was the way to go; P90X. Since I wanted to gain weight, not lose it, I skipped the cardio portion and stuck to only the strength/weight lifting portion of the program. I bought some dumbbells and fell in love almost immediately with lifting weights.

After two months I realized P90X wasn't the program to use to bulk up and gain weight so I switched to traditional weight lifting. I joined the Y and working out became my new hobby/fascination and addiction. I would spend hours online and in book stores looking up the right ways to meet my training goals.

My eating habits changed drastically as well. I had been a health nut for over a year already, avoiding junk and processed foods. But now, to meet my newfound goals I began to eat every 3 hours and I ate not just healthy, but "clean."

So that's a quick back story and the why, but I want to speak about the process, as I am still and now always will be, involved in it.

When I lift weights I feel like I'm pushing against every problem that I have and overcoming them. On days when I feel like absolute crap, a good solid, hard workout makes me feel alive again and gives me some sort of unspeakable hope in myself and my abilities. On my best days when everything seems right, working out makes everything even clearer.

I don't know why it takes pain and struggle for us to find ourselves sometimes, but I've found it just does. We all have pain, trials and struggles that cause us much hurt. Many if not all of us medicate that pain in some way so as not to feel it (drugs, alcohol, porn, TV, keeping busy, etc.) I'd like to think that when I hit the gym I am not medicating myself to avoid the pain of life, but rather embracing the pain and then beating the crap out of it. It's like I'm beating it at it's own game; I'll let pain hurt me, then I'll hurt it twice as much and use it for my benefit.

The other thing that I've noticed in my life as a result of both eating very healthy and working out is the amount of self-control I've developed. I have found it much easier to control my body and what it does rather than it controlling me. So all in all weight lifting has given me tons of benefits with no downsides, except the chore of eating way more than I used to.

So, it's been a year this month and I have; gained 20 pounds, 2 inches in my arms, almost all of that muscle. Inside and out I look better, feel better and stand straighter. I know I will be weight lifting as long as I am able to, hopefully well into my later years.

If anyone has questions about beginning a weight lifting routine let me know. I would love to be able to help point you in the right direction.

I truly believe you will find clarity of mind as well as strength of body soul and spirit.

An Open Letter to Christians in America

I wrote this post below in 2007 when I first created this blog::::::::::

The following is not an exhaustive work that I have labored over for hours. It's merely some thoughts I begun to have after seeing the mid-term elections of 2006 tear people apart. I don't claim to be a scholar or a writer, so please take it for what it's worth.
My only disclaimer is that I do love the church and my brothers and sisters in it very much. They are my family, especially the church body I belong to locally.

To those of us who call themselves Christians:

We as followers of Christ have not been called to clean up the world and make it a safer place to live. We've been called to live a life of holiness, self-sacrifice and in love, speak the truth about Jesus Christ and his saving grace. We have not been called to change political systems, amend constitutions or set-up rulers who will favor our beliefs. Our home is an eternal, heavenly kingdom, not one built by human hands. The Bible clearly tells us that during our short time here we are strangers on this earth:

"...All these people were still living by faith when they died. They did not receive the things promised; they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance. And they admitted that they were aliens and strangers on earth. People who say such things show that they are looking for a country of their own. If they had been thinking of the country they had left, they would have had opportunity to return. Instead, they were longing for a better country–a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared a city for them."
(Hebrews 11:13-16)

As strangers here, we shouldn't be so caught up in trying to perfect some earthly utopia for ourselves, but rather prepare ourselves for our coming eternal home. As I look around at the religious climate in the States right now, I don't see the Christian church living like strangers on this earth. I see us living like people who think this world is our kingdom and our Christian values should be the law of the land.

Much of the church thinks if they can only get non-Christians to act like Christians then they will have done the country a great service. I agree that if we as a country based all of our laws on God's we would have a safer, more pleasant nation. But to accomplish that result we have to fight the infamous "culture war." The term culture war is one that implies a war between two sets of people with opposing ideas. The problem with the culture war is that Ephesians 6:12 says that our enemies are not people but spiritual powers. The culture war mistakenly makes people our enemies to the devastation of the gospel message.

God has called the church to a mission: feed the poor, heal and visit the sick, deliver people from bondage, etc. The mission of the American church seems to be that of casting stones, making mountains out of political mole hills and trying to clothe itself and non-believers alike in an "appearance of righteousness." And all of this doesn't even seem to be done for the sake of the lost but for the comfort of the believers themselves.

The church looks around and sees immorality in the form of abortion, gay marriage, etc. To the church, these issues are the enemies of a good, stable society and their chance to live the "american dream." Let me say up front, I oppose abortion, I don't believe homosexuality is the will of God and I consider myself to have pretty "conservative" values.

But at the same time I have been wondering lately if we as Christians should really spend our time trying to change the world by installing politicians into office who agree with us on all of our "christian" issues. The American dream and an earthly utopia are not mentioned anywhere in the Bible, but self-sacrifice, communal living and many other "un-American" ideas are.
It's been quoted many times but it's also one of the most ignored verses in the Bible:

"If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land"
(2 Chronicles 7:14)

It's pretty clear that if we as Christians do want a "nation under God" then we need to be changing ourselves more than we need to be worrying about the sins of others. So, lets vote on issues that are important to us, we have that right as Americans. But as Christians we shouldn't get caught up in trying to change the rules of government, or worse people's outward behavior when that is not what we were instructed to do by Jesus.

The Pharisees were all concerned about behaviors and what people "did." As I said earlier, we cannot expect people who are not christians to act like christians. And even if you could make them stop doing certain outwardly behaviors, what good would that do? It would do no good except to make the world a little more comfortable for you.

The world needs the real Jesus, not a religious game of "clean the outside of the cup." Safety & comfort are not the goals of the Christian life. Our life should be dangerous. I remember reading in a worship magazine an interview with Mark Foreman, father of Jon & Tim Foreman of Switchfoot. He basically said: we spend our whole lives trying to raise our kids to be safe and protected, when our job is to put them in harms way.

As adult Christians we need to be living in harms way, changing the world through the example of Jesus not the example of politicians. If gay marriage is legalized, it may mean a gay couple may move in next to you and you may have to actually get to know them and love on them.

So as we await the eternal kingdom prepared for us, how should we live in this temporal world in which we have been born into? For those of us who were fortunate enough to be born in the United States, we should be living very differently than we seem to be.

We should be less concerned with trying to change the moral compass of our nation through politics and protests and more concerned with changing ourselves into people of compassion, love and virtue. The book of Acts mentions how the early church was held in high esteem by the outside world for their acts of service. May that be said of us in these times.

David