Working out religiously

Trigger warning – I’ll be discussing religion again.

It occurred to me recently that becoming a Christian is a lot like joining a gym. Like most gym memberships, what you get out of it depends on what you put into it. There are people who join a gym merely to be able to say they belong to a gym. They pay their membership fees and…stay home. Or they go for a while, are really excited at first, but quickly lose enthusiasm when they find out it requires real effort to achieve real results.

Or there are people who buy their membership as more of a social opportunity. They’re there to network, to be seen, or to scout out potential dates. They like to hang out at the juice bar, or be seen next to equipment, and maybe even use it from time to time.

There are also those who focus on specific machines or on specific goals like bodybuilding, cardio training, or flexibility training to the exclusion of most everything else. They’re really excited about that one facet of fitness and, while they may try some of the other exercises or machines, they keep coming back to their favorite.

But to really get the full benefit of a gym, and to achieve the highest level of over-all fitness, requires prolonged commitment and effort over time. It requires continued effort, even after the excitement wears off. It’s easier at first when the benefits and results are fairly evident. The first few times are rough, but before long you notice increased stamina, greater strength, etc. But as you progress it seems like you have to put in much greater effort for less noticeable gains. It may be tempting to give up.

That’s where one of the biggest advantages of a gym comes in: a personal trainer. With an expert in fitness at your side you get a program that is custom-tailored to you. They know the right machine and the right exercises to get the precise results you’re looking for. They are better able to determine the progress you are making and even what progress is needed. They’re there to push you when things get tough–and when you really should stop to avoid serious harm. They’re there to help you get where you want to go even when you’re not so sure you still want to go there.

When signing up for Christianity, Christ is our personal trainer. He knows that spiritual fitness is not a one-and-done deal. He knows not everyone is really committed to fitness in the first place. But for those who are willing to put themselves in his hands, he will lead you, and will work with you every step of the way. He knows what you can handle and what you can’t. He knows the benefits from the less-obvious, incremental gains, and will help you keep going, even when you start to question if it’s worth it.

Not every avowed Christian is really interested in turning themselves over to the personal trainer. To do so requires faith; faith in the trainer, faith in the program he sets for you, and faith that the benefits of fitness are real and worth trying for. Effort without that faith may bring you benefits, but they will be much less, and much less permanent. It’s like showing up at the gym once or twice a week, picking a machine at random and doing some exercises for a few minutes. If you really believed that fitness is worth the effort, and that the trainer can help you get there, you’ll want to putin the work.  Indeed, faith in the trainer and the program inspires the level of effort needed to unlock those promised gains. Faith in the trainer is the key, but that faith will also motivate you to action.

Spiritual fitness is a longer proposition than physical fitness. We can work our entire lives to put off the natural man and follow like Christ, and still not get there. We may reach a point where we don’t even notice any change any more. It may be hard to feel the work our trainer is putting in to rework out hearts. We may not notice that we’re up to 100 reps in a session where we were lucky to do 10 I our early days at the gym, or that we can now hold a difficult yoga pose for five minutes without shaking.

We may have to extend our workout by ten more minutes before we can really achieve the next level. It’s work, and it’s going to take a long time. Fortunately for us that faith in our personal trainer is the criteria on which we will be judged, not by how many reps we can do, how many pounds we can lift, how many miles we run, or how long we can hold a pose. It’s how much faith and trust we have placed in our trainer, and how hard we’ve worked to follow through on the training regimen because of that faith.

There’s one more important part to this analogy. When we first sign up at the gym we don’t know anyone else there. We have no idea which members are the dedicated fitness enthusiasts, which are the poseurs, and which are the know-it-all, don’t-need-a-trainer bunch. We may find some of the members intimidating when they are able to hit goals we can only dream of. We may even feel like we don’t belong, that everyone will think we’re fat, or something.

If that happens it’s unfortunate. The gym rules clearly state that we shouldn’t judge one another. We shouldn’t be fat-shaming others, mocking those who show up in their expensive workout outfits and then put in the bare minimum effort. We shouldn’t begrudge those who may have been with the gym longer and who have put in many long, hard hours, when they outshine us on a given piece of equipment. We shouldn’t even make fun of those who show up, sweat a little for ten minutes, and then call it a day and wander off to the juice bar.

It’s not our call to make on who is serious in their pursuit of fitness and who are only signed up to gain some discount on their company health plan. It should be assumed that we’re all in different places in our fitness program, and that we should be there to help support one another and cheer each other on. The personal trainer has time and attention enough for all of us. We lose nothing by jumping in to spot someone else on a heavy lift. We gain more than we know when we help a fellow member resist the ice cream truck jangling by outside after a long, hard workout. Looking out for one another only makes the gym more pleasant and encourages more to keep going. The personal trainer loves it when we help him out by giving one another help and encouragement, by sharing our experiences and findings on what works.

Christianity shouldn’t be about whose gym is best. The cancer-sticks-and-booze crowd, the couch potato crowd, and the train-at-home crowd are more than happy to see gyms fail or to point out the failings of gym members in order to make them feel better about their own choices. While it’s valid to want to share what we like most about our gym in hopes that we can add something to someone else’s experience with their own gym, in the end all the gyms and their membership need to watch out for one another. The more we stand together the more we all benefit, regardless of which gym we call home. At the end of the day we should have more in common than we have differences if spiritual fitness is our goal.