Half of doing…

This is my trainer…

His name is Nate.

I fight with him a lot.

Now… you may be thinking with disgust,  “How COULD he??”  But I am not talking about THAT kind of fighting, because as you can see by the picture to the left…I would not only lose – but would probably die doing it!

This is what we fight about:

The picture is of Nate and Tasha (his fiance)’s gift to me this Christmas. No, we don’t fight about gifts.

We do argue about belief.

Nate is trying to convince me that you have to believe it to be able to do it. But just look at him… what CAN’T he do? Of course he believes it.

So, I get irritated.  I know many people who have believed they could do things, only to find out they couldn’t.  And I am REGULARLY surprised at the things I can do, that I wasn’t really sure I could.  Fortunately, I have a healthy curiosity and a strong drive to TRY to get what I want. That keeps me going.

But after receiving this gift I was resolved to figure this out…. Here is what I came up with.

When I go in to train, Nate says, “OK today is ‘Hundreds Day’. We are going to do 100 reps of each exercise.” And I think, “Who is WE?”   Then I think, “Well, we’ll see”  (not in a cynical way, but in a ‘I sure am curious to see if he knows what he is talking about” sort of way. I mean, HE thinks I can do this humongous feat… So I start counting.)

I don’t start believing in my abdominal strength or my resolve to finish, though.  I just believe HIM. And so I try. At 88 I start thinking… “wow” (and ouch).  At 99 I think, “Huh.  What do you know…”

Sometimes I can’t finish.  Pain or complete fatigue keeps me from it, no matter how mad or resolved I am.  It just isn’t there.  I hate that.  But he is happy – like he planned it that way…then he tells me that working to failure helps build those muscles.  (NOTE: I am not a body builder, but started with little to NO strength from decades of lack of use)

So what does this all mean to the “1/2 of Doing is Believing” statement?

For me, it means that by myself I am nothing.  I may think / believe I can or can’t do something.  But Christ, who made me, knows infinitely better than I what I am capable of.  “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me”  is a faith / belief statement.  But not belief in ME – it is belief in Christ… In His understanding of my abilities and in His faithfulness to me when I fail…and so I dare to try.

It’s the same when I am working out.  I don’t know HOW to believe I can.  So I just believe what someone, who knows better, says I can.  He is always right too.

….yup.