Fitness as a Sacred Act
How to find peace, hope, and salvation at the bar
I just marked my 600th workout since the decision to make my physical temple a priority.
That means I have spent more time at “the bar” than almost any other activity.
Over the course of picking heavy things up and putting them back down again, I’ve lifted roughly 11.5 tons… or the barbell equivalence of an armored truck.
And I guess you could say that, in so doing, I’ve built up some serious armor…. on the outside, for sure (I mean, that picture doesn’t even feel like me), but I’ve also forged some serious armor on the inside as well.
Forged by necessity.
I thought that everyone would be supportive of my quest for physical fitness. But instead I found that,
Many people won’t understand or accept your journey.
One of the more unexpected results of getting in shape has been the body-shaming.
Back when I was fluffy—as my kids say—no one thought twice about my choices. Most skinny folk were glad to have me around, in fact! If you aren’t the largest person in the room, you don’t feel as bad about yourself or your choices. My being overweight made people more comfortable about themselves… because, at least they weren’t in my shape. But,
Break out of the mold, or
Follow the road less traveled, or
Go against the tide, and
you will be dammed by other tide-riders who disapprove.
I’ve been shamed more times than I can count for how I look and the effort I have put into it.
Snarky remarks made within earshot.
Terse social media comments.
Congregants (and even a staffer) looking for something to secretly snipe about in order to draw others into allegiance with their own godless goals.
Flyers passed around the sanctuary.
Gossip about ministerial clothing choices from desperate housewives.
LOL.
It’s funny now.
It wasn’t then.
It was, [I’m gonna call it out here] evil.
People can be mean.
I’ve had more than a handful of people insinuate (and some outright communicate) that a pastor shouldn’t pay attention to their physical form.
“It’s unbecoming,” they say.
So is self-righteousness, in my opinion.
I get that not everyone wants to think of their pastor as human… as a person… with feelings… with faults… with freedom… with agency… with a soul… and a body. It is tough to accept that a spiritual influence is also a sacred and sexual being created by God, just like them.
It is MUCH simpler if our clergy are two-dimensional characters in our three-dimensional story
A two-dimensional cleric is easy to control, assuage, and outright ignore. A 2D pastor can easily be bent… toward our personal needs …toward our particular opinions.
A 3D pastor is complex. They’ll not always (re)act in the way that you expect or desire. They will do things that confront you and confound you.
And they likely won’t seek your opinion before doing it.
As you might expect, each of these people were incensed when I ignored their body-shaming.
I laughed it off.
[I even made copies of the flyers and asked the office to distribute them freely to anyone who wanted to see the ridiculous things people say.]
Their opinions simply didn’t outweigh my why.
You have to know your “Why”
Most of us have been in and out of the fitness game for most of our lives. Gym memberships, fad diets, crash weight-loss tactics, we’ve done them all.
Few healthy; most unsustainable.
600 workouts ago, I was looking down the business end of 40 and realized I was headed down a path where my life might not outlast my kids’ high school graduations.
Two close friends my age had died, and I was in the process of killing myself with food and stress.
I was DadBod+.
As a minister, I am called to sacrifice, but I was sacrificing the wrong thing.
Myself.
I was burning the candle at both ends and hurtling like a locomotive toward a point of no return. They say around the age of 40, we humans get set in our ways and changing of practices or beliefs becomes quite difficult. I had to take control before I lost control or the motivation to be in control.
So, my why was about taking back control.
My why was a decision to remove other people’s grubby paws from the control joystick of my life and take firm (and final) grasp of the yoke myself.
My why was about being the fittest dad on the sidelines of my kids’ games, it was about being healthy enough to meet my grandkids, it was about the mental sanity and centeredness, it was about looking good in the mirror, and it was about proving that a sloppy, overweight husband, father, or pastor wasn’t a great example of discipline.
Practice what I preach, right?!
But since I had failed so many times before, I knew that just having a why wasn’t enough.
The why has to be more compelling than the whynots.
Over the years, I had started “getting in shape” more times than I could possibly be expected to count.
Every time, without fail, I failed. I just wasn’t able to stick with it in order to maintain the positive outcomes I wanted.
But this time, I had a rock solid why. I was going to stick to my plan, even if no changes came.
But change did come. Of course it did. As my body adjusted to the new normal—slowly at first but then rather dramatically—people began to take notice. It was odd when they did, and it always caught me off guard. I actually didn’t much like people noticing or commenting. I wasn’t doing it for them.
Then a funny thing began to happen. People began asking for advice on how to effect similar change in themselves. This is great, I thought. I can help people!
They wanted to know my secret eating plan, routine, or supplement. I told them what I was doing, and encouraged them that I’d be there along the way as they made their own dramatic change.
But few made it off the couch.
Upon reflection it is clear to me that they suffered the same difficulty which had plagued all of my own failures to launch.
They wanted the outcome but lacked the present resolve to start a long, hard walk in the same direction.
They had too many whynots, and the whynots were more compelling than the work to get to a place of fitness.
The whynots in life always tend to get in the way of our goals. The whynots are often good things, but they can prevent us from experiencing the great things. So we sacrifice the future on the altar of the immediate. That had been more story for a long time, so I understand it.
I’d gotten to such an unhealthy place in my life because I had given all of my margin to work, kids, ministry, and other things.
I was sacrificing myself on an altar of futility, and I was soon going to have nothing left to give anyone, let alone myself.
If you aren’t willing to make sacrifices, you won’t make progress.
I vowed this time would be different. I had decided that my why was more important than any whynots that life could throw at me.
So, I scheduled a firm hour into my calendar every day that was blocked off without exception. I spent more than I should have on a top-of-the-line lifting rig. I selfishly transformed garage space into a home gym. I bought speakers and an amp that hit decibel levels usually reserved for adolescents.
I cranked up the music, and then I started pick up heavy things and putting them back down.
Over, and over, and over again.
Day after day.
Nothing got scheduled during that time. I guarded the time like I once guarded the last cinnamon roll in the donut box. I wasn’t giving up, come hail or high water.
If I didn’t feel like it, I did it anyway.
If I was hurting, I did it anyway.
If I didn’t have the time, I did it anyway.
Over, and over, and over again.
My wife made sacrifices. My kids made sacrifices. My job made sacrifices.
And I had to sacrifice any hope of ever making everyone happy.
I had to be 100% all in. And, I was.
But every good thing in our life also has a dark side, a shadowland where the thing meant for good can turn toxic.
It can be a drug, and that’s not a good thing.
As week turned into month, and month turned into year, the changes in my physique weren’t just noticeable, they were absolutely exceptional. Dramatic. Like, unbelievable.
I was no longer the same guy.
When I went to a gym, people got out of my way and treated me with a weird level of deference, calling me “Sir” a lot. I could put up serious numbers on key lifts that competed with or exceeded guys half my age. I noticed others took me a lot more seriously, even when I wasn’t being serious. I was regularly told that I was unbelievably intimidating, just by being present. And I knew I looked pretty amazing for my age and role (dad, husband, father, and man). People were telling me that I should compete. This, for a guy who’d never even been able to take his shirt off at the beach without embarrassment.
I’d achieved all that I had hoped to accomplish, and more: A great physique, unbelievably good health stats, and the ability to manage stress well.
But somewhere along the way I lost my way.
Working out became the why, fitness for the sake of itself.
It became a drug.
I was hooked on the high.
I was hooked on the look.
I was once again at a place where there was no margin or balance in my life. Only this time, instead of me taking the hit, it was my family that was taking the brunt of my failure.
I hadn’t just created margin, I had created a monster that ate my margins again.
Thankfully I had a fail safe:
Surround yourself with people who will kick your ass.
I had, over the years, been blessed to be baptized into a community of people who saw it as their job to keep me humble… my wife, my best friend, my cohort brothers.
They all, in important and deeply meaningful ways, hung in with me and guided back to equilibrium when I lost my way.
They gently reminded me that I was more complex than a two-dimensional mirror could reflect.
They never asked or encouraged that I give up what had become a deep love, lifting. But they did regularly encourage me to be sure I was in balance.
Balance is important.
When I found it—balance AND health—I found that a remarkable thing happened.
Healthy habits become ongoing spiritual acts.
The weight room became a sanctuary.
The gym became sacred space, and it saved me.
My time with the weights became less about stress management and looks and became a spiritual act of worship.
A discipline.
I had found something greater than my why. I had found a place where I met God and God met me.
Each day I found that I longed for that time with God.
The health, the physique, the stress management, all of those were side benefits. The main thing was the spiritual centeredness that came as a result of this daily act of discipline.
And when I realized this, I understood that all that I had learned on my quest for fitness also applied to my quest for the depths of Christ.
Everything I had learned along the way of my fitness journey paralleled my spiritual one.
