Exercise

Does Your Life Inspire Others To Soar?

/ Lori Lawe / 3 Comments

Here’s a picture taken just after I completed a triathlon.

I’m the one in the hat. You can also tell which one is me because I’m the one that is “fit looking”. Just sayin’. Well, at least I should say that I’m the one that looks “fitter than I was”. Whatever.

Yes! We are wearing matching shirts! I completed this triathlon as a memorial for my dad, who passed away not long ago, and who inspired us all in physical strength by completing many triathlons.

Leaders inspire others by their examples.

. . . lead them by your own good example says the ancient text

How will our lives inspire others who are watching us, even though we don’t see them looking our way? By our example. Are you awake to who God is calling you to become?

In the last post, we talked about how God often wants to wake us up to His vision for our lives, if our ears are screwed on tight enough to hear Him.

God may be blowing open your expectations of what He can do through your life if you sense any of the following:

1) God is whispering about something you know you could never accomplish on your own strength.

2) God seems to envelop you in love, even for just a moment, or to touch your heart with His invisible love. With Him as the wind, holding up your wings, He can move mountains.

3) God is trying to wake you. He stands next to your bedside, gently nudging you. He picked up your ears off the floor. Will you put them on?

What does He see when He looks at you? Ask Him! If you don’t hear His gentle whisper, continue reading The Message. Every word read helps put a bit more glue on our ears, ever ready to fall off.

How may God be calling you to set an example for others of a life well lived?

Abba, continue to speak in ways that we can finally grasp the truth that You have much, much bigger plans for our lives than we do, with You at the helm, guiding us for Your kingdom purposes. Help us to be able to hear You more clearly, we pray. Keep our ears screwed on tight.

God Encourages Us To Complete The Triathlon?

/ Lori Lawe / 4 Comments

While my back still felt like an old lady’s, when I had to yell up at people so they could hear me as I spoke to their waist, hunched over, I announced I would do a triathlon.

“Well . . . if I can walk, I will do a triathlon,” I clarified.

This annoying back problem has GOT to get better someday, right?

And it did get better, praise be to God.

It didn’t help that the little kid I was playing with at the family dinner jumped on my back in a fit of fun.

My community gathered around me that same night and cared for me, lifting me to God in prayer.

My back felt better after that night than it had in a long, long time.

So, yup, time to do a triathlon.

I didn’t have as much time to train as I had intended, but I thought the bike part was about 10 km?

I was shocked as I picked up my bib the day before the race to learn that the bike part was 20 km. Could my back even handle being on a bike that long?

My husband coached me, like a parent coaching a small child. I needed some direction. “Now remember,” he said slowly, “You have your goals in the wrong order.” He coached me by holding up a finger for each goal. “The most important goal is not to get hurt,” he said. I had relegated that goal to Goal #3. He was right.

But in the pool, I felt God nudging me to swim faster (!). What does God care about an obscure triathlon where a bunch of fairly fit middle-aged people do their exercises?

(There were actually some young and very fit people there who definitely upped the cool factor of the race. Just sayin’. I’m sure I would have beaten John in the race to Jesus’ tomb too. Just sayin’. Not that that matters OF COURSE, but for those who are interested, I thought you should know).

Then I realized that God was speaking to me during this triathlon because God cares about everything we do. We can’t relegate Jesus to an hour on Sunday. Everything is an opportunity to grow closer to Him, if we can find our ears and screw them on.

Maybe there was a lesson here too, while completing this triathlon, that He wanted to nail through my thick skull, a lesson that wouldn’t sink into my brain any other way, perhaps.

And I went further and faster than I thought I could.

. . . THAN I THOUGHT I COULD.

How else are we limiting ourselves with what God wants to do through us?

What race is God asking you to enter that is too far for you to go, or that you are too slow to finish?

Are your ears lying on the floor, too?

Samuel took his flask of oil and anointed [David, the shepherd boy, as king], with his brothers standing around, watching. The Spirit of God entered David like a rush of wind, God vitally empowering him for the rest of his life. The Message

Ways that God may be trying to wake us, trying to translate His words into a language we can understand, trying to encourage us to pick up our ears, screw them on, and listen to His vision for our lives will be discussed in the next post.