Last Tuesday, I am blessed to speak about the topic Physical Freedom. It was really a night full of my passion and love overflow from God. Below is my teaching which was asked my two of the hearers. I felt honoured.
As a disclaimer, I would like to share that I am still a work in progress. My coach is still working my life and I am willing to be broken and mold. (Please note the words, willing, broken) I am under God’s grace.
Someone once said to me, being ready is not a concrete thing if not a 'no such thing' word.
No one is ready, ONE CAN ONLY BE WILLING.
Ready or not, we must be willing to do God's training.
Say we all go into a funrun. How many K can you run?
For those who have been running, you know what to do. Prepare.
To those who are their first time, or just starting, here are some tips.
1. Avoid anything new for the race. (new shoes, new clothes, new food)
2. Prepare your running outfit and stuff.
3. Make sure you have your race number, singlet and other race materials.
4. Review the map course/ direction.
5. Plan how you will get to the race venue, where you will park and when you will leave.
6. Drink plenty of water to properly hydrate your body.
7. Rest and relax while you can. (Don’t walk for more than two hours to avoid sore feet a day before the marathon.)
8. Don’t eat much during dinner or late at night.
9. Eating the wrong foods can also be a problem.
10. Avoid alcohol, smoking and caffeine.
11. Plan your breakfast for the next day.
12. Go to bed early so that you can wake up early the next day.
13. Remain calm all throughout the day.
14. Don’t forget to set your alarm clock
Source: http://www.takbo.ph/2011/01/14-important-tips-on-what-to-do-the-day-before-the-marathon/
This funrun is a training to our bodies. We all know the good benefits of running or any cardio activities. It burns unwanted fats, it pumps blood throughout our bodies, and fights sickness and diseases, helps us feel good.
Now that's stereotyping.
Now, do we see this as something spiritual?
Tonight we shall create the stereotype running into an archetypal spiritual journey.
Let's put this whole idea in archetyping
Stereotyping vs archetyping is.
Stereotyping - Typical thinking, certain ways of doing, thinking as it is, classifying thing or idea.
Stereotype for Goths are black clothes, black makeup, depressed, hated by society.
Stereotype for Punks are mohawks, spikes, chains, menace to society, always getting in trouble.
Same thing as when we say running or any exercise is only for fat people, for the sickly.
Let's go to archetyping:
Archetyping - thinking beyond the box, beyond what's seen, much "personal" and "local", but rather deal with universal themes. Model. Prototype.
In simple terms.
That's just a funrun - stereotype.
Training our bodies or running is discipline. - archetype
Let's look at health freedom as something extraordinary, and universal. Just like how Paul would all encourage us to run the race, when he means, let's keep the faith and finish our spiritual journey in good fight.
Let's go to physical training, why it is important, and let's try to look at our bodies.
We all know this command:
1 Corinthians 6:19-20
Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body.
It is written in the bible and we don't have to doubt that physical training is important! We need to glorify our God with our bodies. Eat clean and balanced, exercise, sleep well, have a healthy social activities, do not impure your bodies, and neglect your health.
Some archetypes I realized in some activities:
1. Running - keeps you focused.
2. Mountain climbing - keeps you humbled even as you go up higher and higher, feet flat on the ground.
The heavy backpack reminds me that, sometimes, God has His way of putting something in our backs in order for us to look up.
3. Swimming - to keep on track with pool lines even if it's blurry.
4. Wall Climbing - You need to lift yourself up, push yourseulf up, even if the gravity pulls you down.
5. Relay - Keep a good handoffs: it is the act or an instance of handing a baton to a teammate in a relay race. In real life, it’s what you share/ give impression to others.
6. Mixed Martial Arts: You know where and when to hit and control your anger.
What are some of the typical things you do that can make sense by creating an archetype idea of that stereotype? Begin to see things differently.
But! though it is important that we train our bodies, we moreover need to train our self to godliness.
1 Tim 4:8
Physical training is good, but training for godliness is much better, promising benefits in this life and in the life to come.
We may do all the exercises all we want, be tired, fight cortisol (stress-hormones), but let's see this as something archetypal as we create in ourselves a discipline. We do not exercise for just fun activities -- we do it for something far better than doing something while we live; we are doing a spiritual journey.
When we can discipline our bodies, we can control how we speak, how we react to things, to anger, to anxieties. When we can discipline ourselves, we can think about such things as:
Philippians 4:8
Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable--if anything is excellent or praiseworthy--think about such things.
The first and greatest victory is to conquer yourself; to be conquered by yourself is of all things most shameful and vile.
Plato
1 Corinthians 9:27
New Living Translation
I discipline my body like an athlete, training it to do what it should. Otherwise, I fear that after preaching to others I myself might be disqualified.
When we conquer our bodies and its desires, we can train ourselves to prayer, reading the Word, and going to church. Once we create in us the discipline of seeking fulfilment with God, we would live a life with spiritual breakthrough. We would understand that only God can satisfy our infinite longings to our infinite needs that is set vacuumed in our hearts (Ecclesiastes 3:11)
How to train:
1. Run with an aim; set goals
1 Corinthians 9:25
Everyone who competes in the games goes into strict training. They do it to get a crown that will not last; but we do it to get a crown that will last forever.
2. Understand that training is not pleasant at a time.
Hebrews 12:11-13
No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it.
Romans 5:19-21
More than that, we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.
3. Aim for endurance not speed
Hebrews 12:1; let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, and though we face trials, problems, making us out of shape.
How to endure? Have a resilient life -
Resilience - the power or ability to return to the original form, position, etc., after being bent, compressed, or stretched; elasticity.
Meaning, we go back to your original form, original goal, original desire when we face trials or hardships. remembering that Isaiah
Isaiah 43:1 NLT: "Do not be afraid, for I have ransomed you. I have called you by name; you are mine.
4. Train to obtain the prize.
1 Corinthians 9:24 ESV
Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one receives the prize? So run that you may obtain it.
5. Practice. Train. Make it a habit.
Proverbs 24:5 ESV
A wise man is full of strength, and a man of knowledge enhances his might
Do you want to be wise? Enhance your might. :)
I mentioned in my introduction “to be broken”. If you are broken right now, you are tired, you have exhausted your body or have been broken.
Matthew 14:13-21: Jesus took the bread and broke it, about 5 thousand were fed. Jesus will take the bread of your life and simply ask you, "May I break this bread?" If you nod, and say yes I am willing, you will be multiplied in way you never dreamed of.
Are you broken right now? God can multiply you. If you make Jesus your life coach (Laurie Beth Jones), no matter how broken you will be:
1. Focused
2. Balanced
3. Productive
4. Fulfilled
Life is a distance run and it demands the kind of conditioning that enables the people to go the distance. - Gordon Macdonald and in this distance run, we all need a life coach -- that is Jesus.
Philippians 1:6 (NLT)
And I am certain that God, who began the good work within you, will continue his work until it is finally finished on the day when Christ Jesus returns.
He won't bring you this far. To leave you where you are. He is waiting in the finish line.
To encourage everyone:
1. Do not give up. (Galatians 6:9
Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.)
2. Do not give in to temptation that becomes sin. (Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death. James 1:15)
3. Keep on keeping on.
4. Carry on.
If you are already running, meaning you are keeping the faith. Remember:
1 Corinthians 10:12 So, if you think you are standing firm, be careful that you don't fall!
How?
Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak. Matthew 26:41 so in the end we say, in the finish line:
2 Timothy 4:7 ESV
I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.
That finish line is eternity with Jesus.
Revelations 3: 5 The one who is victorious will, like them, be dressed in white. I will never blot out the name of that person from the book of life, but will acknowledge that name before my Father and his angels.
Those that will overcome, will get the finisher's band, medal, or shirt and will their names be listed in the fun run race as a finisher.
