Flexing
I was in Manhattan one summer when some “trust fund babies” – my friend’s words, not mine! – stopped to ask me what gym I attended as they loved how toned I was.
Thinking it was a joke, I was readying my best sarcastic, “Do I look stupid?” face when Joi intervened. Explaining that I was just visiting, she recommended a great trainer and promptly fished out his number.
“Toned?!” I queried as we walked away.
“Well, you are” she laughed, “just oblivious to it.”
She wasn’t wrong about that last. I was slim, but had largely overlooked the muscle because it was part and parcel of me.
However, twenty years and regular bouts of inactivity caused by major illness, had subsequently made the fit factor flop to flabby.
Plus, my body was having a ball knowing my feet would rather trip each other up than actually do any exercise. After all, the fat had always melted away in the past, therefore wasn’t it simply a question of patience?
Who was I kidding?
It jiggled, cosily.
And I jaggled, uneasily.
As what started as a relatively minor physical discomfort in the grand scheme of things was in potential danger of running amok if left unchecked.
A lot like the way doubt can so easily overshadow faith.
The latter has likely been in us all along in some form or the other. Then when someone explains exactly what it is, we see it’s obviously a great thing to have. Except that it doesn’t quite operate the way it’s supposed to unless we put it into practice.
Regularly.
I assumed I had the forever-slim gene.
Ha!
And at times treat faith like a genie-in-a-bottle at my beck and call; crammed Scripture impressing impressionable ears whilst worry bubbles up in the recesses of my addled brain.
Hmmm!
Whose fault is it that the days after an infrequent workout require analgesics galore?
Mine.
Or that I spend an inordinate amount of time dreading the “but what if” kind of stuff that never happens?
Mine, again.
Uncertain and perilous times demand extra measures: physically, mentally and spiritually.
So now I’m working that body and flexing that faith muscle.
It’s all I’ve got.
And to be truly fit for purpose, basically all I need.
😎
■
📖 Jesus heard what they said, and he said to Jairus, “Don't worry. Just have faith!”
Mark 5:36 CEV (YouVersion)
■