As I have mentioned before, I enjoy running & doing obstacle course events. I find the running portions much easier than upper body challenges. I am disproportionate & play to my natural strengths for as far as my legs will carry me. When I bother to work out, the bulk of it is cardio, as conditioning towards what my edge often is is easier to sharpen my speed and endurance.
However, one of my friends has patiently persisted in asking me why I have not taken on the services of a personal trainer. This might provide an avenue by which I could correct my imbalance of focus and guide me towards getting to the peak of my potential performance. To reach the top, rather than just being content to hustle with my bottom limbs pulling the weight. They told me last night, "Kaleb, I know that you CAN finish these events. I have seen you do things out of a sheer force of will. But the question you need to ask yourself is 'How hard do you want to make it for yourself to finish?"
I have explained away my reasons for not hiring a trainer before, which will soon follow and be elaborated upon, but this query stuck with me. I have encountered it in another area of my life in regards to my faith, and my answers were ever, "As hard as it needs to be as long as I am the one finishing." My friend is not a Christian, and I am, & I realize that the same struggles I have had in my spiritual habits are ones I must revisit in my physical habits as well.
Reason #1: I am stubborn and have an intense desire within me to want to work out my own salvation through sweat, blood, and tears. Whether it causes me pain, suffering, and effort, I long to be able to beat myself into submission and perfection with my own hands. Like Aaron Burr in Hamilton, "I am an original, I am inimitable." But you get nothing for it if you just wait for it to happen. It is only when I reach the edge of my abilities and become frustrated that I recognize the benefit of someone else possibly helping me to overcome this barrier of my own limitations. Christ did this for me with extreme patience, while I whaled at the walls in vain. But it was only when I gave up and looked heavenward that I was truly ready to accept that I couldn't do it on my own. I value the things I work for, and until I am able to appreciate the work it takes I am apt to be a little ungracious of the value of the help offered.
Reason #2: I don't feel comfortable asking for help if I believe the task is something I can do myself. I am aware that this is a selfish, proud, and vainglorious thought, but one I need to rediscover and relearn multiple times in my life. I insist on breaking myself first to find that I need to be fixed in my habits. I have learned better habits through exhausting the potential of lesser ones and firmly setting them aside. When I was younger, I had a short fuse, and I prayed about it. I burned to please and self-destructed when I did not manage to accomplish that which I wished. I hated myself and felt that God would never love me when I couldn't manage to do good like He was asking. These self-destruction breakdowns managed to hurt others as well as myself, and gradually God helped me to be more gracious towards others, and eventually myself. It was in my teens that I went through a study of Romans and the doctrine of grace really landed home for me. That God would call me His son and love me and adopt me as his namesake before I did anything worthy of love is very freeing. That I don't have to impress Him, but that I might share the same gift of grace with others that was granted to me is much easier. I now want to rejoice in successes far more than to focus upon my failings as stumbles along the way. It is a walk with Christ, and though I found it more difficult to manage as a spiritual and physical toddler, I don't think as much about my falls, or even my walking unless someone brings my attention to how curious a thing balance is for bipedal creatures. But I want to climb and swing well as well as just run, and a trainer might guide me physically as Christ has helped me spiritually. It requires that I humble myself and ask for help.
Reason #3: I have commitment issues. I tend to be hesitant to commit to new things because I am prone to hyper-focusing on them to the exclusion and ignorance of all else. Once I decide to do something, I pour my energy into it until it exhausts me or I am exhausted of it. Moderation is a problem for me, as I don't always balance things well. If I juggle too many commitments, I will tire myself out or not pay sufficient attention to keep all the objects in the air, and things will tend to drop off around me. For me to take working out seriously, I will have to reexamine the place I have allotted to it in my life as "something to pursue in free time when I am feeling up to it" to "Something I am actively setting time aside to pursue." And it is bothersome to spend money on things I do not use. I already do that with streaming subscriptions to entertainment. People used to put their money where their focus was, but there are ever so many things to focus on these days, so money often is lost through distraction. All the same, I didn't like the idea of paying for a trainer if my commitment is half-hearted and distracted. I was the same with my faith as well - I didn't want to become a member of a church because I did not see a need to attach my name to any one congregation over another. We are one body in Christ, why should it matter if I sign in your ledger? I should go where the Spirit leads me to go and seek pasture for where my spiritual needs are fed. However, I did join a church this past year, and I did it for the benefit of not seeking my own benefit, but out of a conviction that I should be held accountable by a body of believers to serving the benefit of others. Things are ever so much easier for me when I am not solely focused on myself and am looking inward for fulfillment, but looking outward for how I could grow and that growth could feed and support others who need shelter, comfort, and sustenance. Perhaps working with a trainer would not be only for the benefits to my physical fitness and abilities for glorying in God's creation to my full potential, but also that I might have the energy to better serve others by this training of strength and endurance.
My friend knows through experience how much a personal trainer has improved their physical life and habits, and is an evangelist extolling the virtues and benefits he has found through it. I feel the same way about Christ and His role in redeeming my life and habits. We both see how our surrendering our wills to a greater and wiser person's guidance has exponentially grown our achieving of our potentials, and wish each other would join our journey so that we might better keep pace in our walks and runs with common experience and recognition.
But these were the reasons which held me back in committing fully in my faith, and I will have to examine in considering my commitment level to a healthier lifestyle which would be easier with a trainer to keep me accountable and aware.
"I don't want to pay the cost if I am not serious." Both in my salvation and in my fitness.
"Change of lifestyle would be too hard or undesirable."
This is a difficulty of vision and taste. God has helped me with changing my tastes from poorer choices to better ones. It is usually through replacement and refocusing on something that is better and more fulfilling that I tend to drop and/or forget to maintain the unsustainable and draining areas of my life.
"What would I lose of time, money, and energy?"
Once again, a problem of focus and emphasis, somewhat negative in tone, but also valid in that in order to pursue some habits, I must choose wisely what is truly important to me lest I lose relationships with family and friends, maintenance on housework, or ability to support other causes I want to further progress. Time is both physically spent and mentally spent, and is not a renewable resource, so I need to pray and consider what best to do with it.
"It works for you, but is not for me."
In terms of spiritual disciplines or physical training regimens, this is a way to politely acknowledge without committing to any change of behavior. Sometimes this is a valid point, but growth is ever possible from wherever I currently am. If my faith were a mustard seed, I could move mountains, but physically, I still have difficulty with chin-ups.
"I can will my own way to greatness"
Without giving appropriate time to properly prepare, the mind may make some headway, but it is made more difficult when other necessities have been neglected. "Wherever you are, be there" as Jim Elliot once said.
