The Transformation Begins...

Well, here it is. It has been some time since I have posted, and for that I must ask your forgiveness. I am going to be posting a lot more about a big thing in my life. Yep, its ME. I am big. Too big. Since high school, I have not been overweight maybe once. I have lost a lot of weight over the years, but kept finding it again.

All kidding aside, there are some passages of scripture that really stuck with me this last week, and I would like to share some of them with you:

1 Corinthians 6:19-20:

“What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own? For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God's.”

This one kinda got things rolling for me. I was teaching someone on salvation, and that WE are the purchased possession talked about in Ephesians 1:14. God made that leap off the pages, and I immediately felt as if he was saying “Hey, there, dummy. Look what you have done to that body that I bought and have taken up residence in? Are you glorifying me in that thing?” I realized at that moment that this is a thing that I have been fighting for a long, long time, and a battle that I have consistently lost over the last couple decades. I confessed to God that I didn’t even know what to do to get my body into shape enough where it was MY servant rather than the other way around, or if I could even do it at all. I realized I had been living defeated. Embarassed. Bad thing about living like that, is once it permeates one area, it has a tendency to creep into other areas. But God doesn’t make or purchase junk. Now, do I realize that just losing weight itself doesn’t glorify God? Sure I do. But what it represents in my life, as well as getting to the point where my body is in enough shape that I can at least use it rather than drag it around as a liability and a bad testimony of being out of balance.

I will share more about this decision, and a couple of demons I had to face in my past in another post. This is talking about where I am now. I am grossly overweight, and I don’t feel like I should be. I’d like to be able to go to the pool and take my shirt off without feeling embarrassed. I’d like to not have to buy fat clothes. I’d like to be able to get down on the floor and not first look around for what I will grab to help me back up. How am I going to do this? First, I have to be transparent to you. This is not easy. I like being the mysterious musician. I like having a dry, dark sense of humor. I have broken things down into four major areas of focus for starters:

1. Time with God. I read regularly, but I have noticed lately that reading itself doesn’t mean much. I mean a lost person can read. But what about the connection with the author of the book – God? We can read thru the Bible in a year and still not really connect with God. I am changing my strategy a little bit. Rather than worrying if I finish all my OWNit365 chapters for that day, I am focusing more on having real fellowship with God. If that is 2-3 chapters, or if it is all of them, the goal is fellowship and connection with God. I am not speaking down to those that feel otherwise about their daily reading. I am merely saying that the time that I do read and commune with God in prayer should be more about connecting with my Lord than “getting something” or “doing my daily chores”.

2. Eating habits. I don’t eat horribly, except when I snack. Okay, and at LIFEgroup when people bring all that great food. OKAAAAY, and at dinner when I have 2 helpings… anyway, I am making 3 main changes to what I am doing in the area of nutrition. First, I am cutting out the snacking, and when the need to snack arises, I will have a couple backups in place at all times. Second, I am cutting out ALL second helpings of stuff. One trip, one plate. And each plate will be person sized portions, not Beluga Whale sized. Finally, pop of all kinds is gone, replaced by water and green tea.

3. Activity. I want to do some strenuous activity every day. Sometimes that will mean running, other times bicycling, P90, yoga, stacking wood, men’s workout with guys from church, chasing my boys, wrestling, or maybe just a good walk. Okay, six days a week at least. When I mean strenuous, I mean a good amount of time pushing myself to some previously established limits and beyond. I want to be able to run a mile by end of summer.

4. Journal and accountability. I am going to post, hopefully at least weekly, my progress and experience. Failures, epiphanies, lessons and successes. Whoever you are that reads this, you will be able to hold me accountable to what I am setting out to do.

This is not a “lifestyle change”. I hate that phrase. Overused, underachieved. No, this is a transformation altogether. Starting now. I am not asking you to go on this journey with me. Those who want to follow, that’s great. But this is for me, led by God, I believe. Not for my sake, but for His, as according to the verse above, as he purchased this body.