God’s Gym – Part II
A Mental Habit
Scripture Reading: James 1:2-4
Key Verse: James 1:4
So let it grow, for when your endurance is fully developed, you will be perfect and complete, needing nothing.
I am trying to get into a mental habit to remember to picture myself as working out in “God’s Gym” when I am going through troubles.
If you stand in front of Planet Fitness and interview people, you will find that most do not enjoy the pain that they experience from their workouts. They sweat and pant when they are out of breath; this is not really a fun experience. Why do they do it? We all know the answer. They are hoping to stay at it long enough to improve their physical fitness, health, and wellbeing.
It hit me a while ago that it would help me if I embrace James 1:2-4 and believe that God uses my suffering and troubles to grow me into the person I really want to be. I was going through a time of physical pain when I realized that I was in “God’s Gym”. I told God to keep me in the gym as long as He felt necessary to accomplish His work in me.
Imagine this… a person who joined Planet Fitness was having a challenging workout. This person finally stopped, walked up to the front desk, and asked for his money back. He told the person at the front desk that he wanted to get in shape, but he did not sign up for the pain.
In a way, this happens in every gym. The first part of a new year has the greatest number of people who join gyms. However, in just a month or two, many people walk out and never come back. It is not easy to keep going through the pain to get the gain for which we had hoped!
So it is in the Kingdom of God. If people come to the Lord hoping to get all the blessings, they sometimes walk away disappointed when tough times happen.
Jesus never promised that our lives will be pain free. He made it clear that both righteous and unrighteous people experience the problems of this world. Everyone has problems.
What did Jesus promise? He promised that He would walk with us through our problems and use them to make us “perfect and complete, needing nothing”(James 1:4).
I am convinced it would help Christ-followers to keep this image of “God’s Gym” in their minds, especially when they are going through tough times.
God never wastes any of your troubles or issues. He wants you to trust Him, and though He does not cause your problems, He always uses them to make you a better person! Keep working hard to fight against the thoughts of “poor me” or “why me” or “life is so unfair”.
You are in “God’s Gym” and you are getting better every day. Thank Him for it!
Father, make me fit in Your gym, and keep me there as long as it takes to make me into the person You want me to be. I trust You. In Jesus’s Name I pray, amen.