I am in my 40’s and have returned to the gym. For the most part I am weight training. I am doing some cardio, but it’s not my focus. I am in there to build muscle. And I must tell you, I feel a lot better. I feel stronger. I’m losing weight. And even things like my anxiousness and irritability are better under control.
Since Thanksgiving I have been a bit lazy with this and I feel the difference. I was designed to work.
It has been proven that our body performs better with more muscle. A 25 year study done on 4,681 patients showed that moderate strength reduces the chance of getting Type 2 Diabetes by 32%. But one does not gain muscle by sitting on the couch. Growing muscle is difficult. It can be painful. And the work can be hard.
It is as if my body needs to do something difficult.
Weight training is pretty simple. You lift as much as you can as many times as you can. You push yourself to failure or within a rep or two of failure. And your body receives a message. Essentially the message is “get stronger or die”. And if you’ve eaten the proper nutrients and rested well your body will repair and strengthen muscles.
I hope you’re picking up what I’m laying down. To build muscle you need difficulty. Your body is designed for difficulty. It is made to adapt to the difficulties.
Weight lifting is not the only way to achieve this. A person that has a physically demanding job will adapt to that job. Muscles grow. Endurance grows. And they are better able to handle the job as time goes by.
Our hearts are the same way. Weight lifting builds muscle all over the body. Cardio makes the heart stronger. How do you strengthen the heart?
You push it. You run faster for longer. You bike faster for longer. You make it pump harder to keep up with the demands. And it gets stronger.
There is a strong correlation between those who have poor cardiovascular fitness and heart failure. Even your heart was made to be pushed.
In other words, your whole body was made for difficulties. If you want to be strong then you need to put yourself under some strain.
You Grow Spiritually Through Difficulties
Our souls develop through hardship as well. We need the strain of trials and tribulations in our lives to develop strength in the Lord. We need for life to not be easy all the time.
Notice what James says,
“Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.”
James 1:2-4 ESV
Trials test our faith. And these trials produce steadfastness in us. We are strengthened in the Lord as we encounter them.
It’s not the trials themselves, all alone, that produce greater faithfulness. But as we are faithful through the trials and testing, our faith is strengthened. And we even find that we are strengthened when we fail, repent, and return to the Lord. Later, when faced with the same temptation, we find success in the Lord.
This only makes sense to the person that understands that God is doing something in our lives that is more important than our temporal happiness. Sometimes we must undergo pain and suffering to accomplish this good thing.
Like a weightlifter that pushes himself to near failure and eventually finds himself stronger. The Lord will allow us to go through trials in order to strengthen us in the faith.
Here is the good thing that God is doing in our lives. He is conforming us “to the image of His Son”, Jesus Christ.
And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose. For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. [Romans 8:28-29 ESV
The wind is not always at our back and the sunshine is not always on our face. Sometimes we need a harsh winter to destroy some of the sin in our lives. Sometimes we need to face trials to show ourselves that we need to rely upon the Lord. Sometimes we need hardship to cut away our rebelliousness and bring our lives into conformity to the Lord.
John Bunyan knew difficulties. His wife died and he was left a single father of four children. His oldest daughter was blind. He would marry again. But he was later imprisoned for preaching.
He can tell us a thing or two about suffering. And one of the things he tells us is that it is through suffering that we grow and are made able to bear fruit.
“We should be overgrown with flesh, if we had not seasonable winters. It is said that in some countries trees will grow, but will bear no fruit because there is no winter there.” (John Bunyan, “Seasonable Counsel: Advice to Sufferers”)
His point is clear. We need those times of hardship in our lives. There is no fruit where there is no winter. And you have to understand that.
God is doing something through the hardship. He is conforming us to the image of His Son. He is pruning us and causing us to bear fruit.
Concluding Thought
We don’t want these hardships in our lives. We desire to avoid them if we can. And we work toward that end. But when they come, we count them as a blessing because God is using the hardship to mold us into the likeness of His Son.
And that is something we can praise God for.
R. Dwain Minor
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