Charged and Ready to ROLL

In my last blog “The Climb,” I referred to a time in my life when I worked with a personal trainer to obtain my best physical body. God is now my personal trainer- working in, on, and through me to build my best spiritual body. Once again, I’ve become aware of some incredible analogies.

When we train with weights, we are actually tearing the muscle down. The recovery that follows builds it into something stronger. Life throws us some pretty intense work outs. It tears us down, but in the end, can build us into someone stronger . Just as with a workout in the gym, the more we ‘show up‘ and apply ourselves with focus, intensity to push through the pain, and a continual reach toward becoming stronger, the more strength we create, the better our results, and the better our life experience.

There is a type of work out called “working the muscle to failure”. The idea here is to do a set of an exercise until you have nothing left. You reach a point of burnout where you “fail” even if you try to do a single rep.

Sometimes we are pushed to “failure” by our Heavenly Trainer. “When we are down to nothing, He is up to something.” It’s extremely important to focus, push through the pain, and trust we are being built into something stronger….better.

My trainer would sometimes set the weight on a machine or hand me a large dumbell, to which I would look at him like he was insane. He would help me with the initial push it took to get me going, I would amaze myself with the strength I had on my own and continue to push through until I hit “failure” All the while, my trainer would be there to “spot” me. His presence was assuring and I knew he wouldn’t let me injure myself. God does the same. He may start us down a path that we think is too difficult for us to navigate, but if we tap into the power we have within, we can amaze ourselves at how far we can go. We may even “fail” along the way, but Our Father is always there to “spot” us. Recovery may be longer than we’d like, but if we trust the process, the experience will result in us having a stronger body - could be physical, mental, emotional or spiritual. The formula for the workout is all the same.

Mother Nature gifted us with a week of sunshine. Father God gifted me with a week of SONshine. The dulldrums my eyes experienced as they looked out the window of our home or my car through the winter, have been replaced with Spring’s colorful images and signs of new life. As my spiritual eyes gaze through the window of my soul, they are dancing as they witness the signs of new life, evident in so many ways.

A metaphor presented itself to me early in the week that gave me clarity about the dreary, frustrating season I was stuck in for so long. A car is stuck and can‘t go anywhere if the battery goes dead. It’s dangerous to allow the positive handle to touch a negative one when you try to get a jump start and you certainly won’t get the results you want, if you’re hooking your cables up to the wrong source of energy.

My battery went dead because it was hooked to a negative source. Even after I detached myself from it, I kept “crossing” paths with it.

Once the battery has been successfully charging, the engine will sound like it’s about to turn over. If too anxious to get the car running and to your destination, you can flood the engine by trying to give it gas too soon. I was doing the same. Even after I plugged into the right source, I was not giving my spiritual battery enough time to recharge before trying to drive on into the future. I did not sit idle with patience or be gentle in giving the gas. The false starts frustrated me to no end. Instead of letting off and giving the battery time to charge, I kept putting the pedal to the metal.

I can now see with great clarity how conscious I need to be of steering away from the wrong source and utilizing the right one. I can also see if I get the handles crossed, how important it is to allow the battery to recover.

It’s important to realize energy requires positive with negative. It’s simply a matter of paying attention to what is what and using it the right way. I thought it interesting that the cross is actually made up of the positive and negative symbols. The crucifixion itself was negative, but the result very positive. That's a new awareness that initiates a WOW from me!

Spring is here. With it’s new life it brings a fully charged spirit. With a fully charged battery, God‘s also given me a full tank of spiritual fuel. My engine is purring like a kitten. When God gives me the green light, no longer stuck, I’m ready to ROLL.