A Fast from Fast

The hardest part of exercise, for me, is not the exertion or exhaustion. It's not the perspiration or the pain.  It's the stretching.  It feels like a waste of time and you go nowhere.  You just sit there and twist and turn and pull and bend.  There is no forward motion.  You don't increase your heart rate.  There is no Fitbit goal of how much you stretched today.  I hate stretching.

So, I have been experiencing some lower back pain and hip pain as I have been running.  I visited my doctor to see if he has any suggestions and to make sure I wasn't doing any damage.  Come to find out I need to stretch.  Not stretch more, just stretch.  You see, I haven't been stretching, at all.

I only have so much time in my day.  I am a busy guy, with lot's on his plate and stretching isn't something I have time for.

The most difficult discipline that I have encountered, in my half century on planet earth is sharpening the saw.  I am a doer; a man of action; sidelines don't become me.  But the older I get, the more I am faced with the reality that retooling is a necessity of life and we all need down time to function better.

In my younger days, I could just muscle through things, but now my strength, sight, reflexes and acuity are not what they used to be and everything takes longer.

I don't want to slow down.  I am not good at slow or down.  My nickname for years has been the Energizer Bunny.  The only slow I do is cooking, but even there I am actively preparing other things while the roast or barbecue or reduction is happening.

I have never been one for meditation, contemplation or reflection.  I like the One Minute Manager, the Express checkout and the FastPass.  When the first Macintosh came out, back in the early 80's, I was impressed, but when I was introduced to the x86 PC, I fell in love.  The box was bigger and clunkier, the screen was not as pretty, but boy was it fast; way faster than the Mac.  Ever since then, life has been in the fast lane.  Meditation is something you do while waiting in line at the bank, in between texts.

A passages of Scripture that challenges me is Psalm 46:10, "Be still and know that I am God..."  The psalmist is saying that one of the best ways for me understand God is to stop moving.  Arrrgghh!  Do you think He is trying to tell me something?  I hate it when I'm wrong.  You wouldn't think it would frustrate me so, seeing as though I am often wrong, but it still irks me.

As a pastor, I work six days a week and on the seventh day, I preach.  There is no resting and yet, if God can do it, shouldn't I?  I'd like that to be a rhetorical question, but, unfortunately, it is not.

It's time to take time; time to make time, for slowing down.  The clock will not slow down, only I can.  Jesus modeled an unhurried life and if anyone had a reason to be urgent, it was Christ.  So I am taking on the yoke of Christ and choosing to go at His unhurried pace.  I am going on a fast from fast.  It's time to break fast, if you know what I mean.

Falling in Love

Falling in love is a misnomer.  Falling happens suddenly.  You can fall asleep, fall off a cliff and fall from grace in a very short period of time, but love doesn't happen that way.  People who "fall in love" with each other quickly misunderstand the meaning of love.  Lust and like can come on without warning, and they can feel amazing, but love, real love, is so much more.
Love is holding someone's hair while they hurl their guts out after their third round of chemo.  Love is letting your spouse sleep while you get up, for the fifth time, in the middle of the night to calm a crying baby.  Love is selling your collector's edition baseball cards to pay for your partner to finish their education.
If you can fall for these situations with a person you just met, then maybe you can fall in love, but usually, this kind of relationship takes time, takes effort, takes sacrifice.  Few budding romances are able to achieve this level of intimacy and depth in a short period of time.
So next time you fall in "love at first sight", ask yourself these questions:
How many times have I fallen for someone, "at first sight," and how long has it lasted?  Could I hold this persons hair while they vomit?  Could I love them without hair? If I couldn't have sex with this person, would I still love them?
Love shouldn't be easily given, but when it is given, it should be given deeply and when it is reciprocal, then the feelings, the intimacy, the sex, will be the best you have ever had.