Okay. I admit it. It happened to me. I got sucked in. I lost focus. I got distracted.
“Distracted by what?” you ask.
Six pack abs.
I blame it all on my Instagram feed. A scrolling wall of half-naked people taking sweat glistening “selfies” in luxurious gyms or immaculate living rooms.
Social media is a great way to reach out and connect with people who have a similar interest in fitness and health, although I realize that many of them could take or leave Jesus. Many people can’t even imagine that God has anything to do or say about their fitness journey. That’s fine with me. It’s not my job to save. It’s my responsibility to be obedient to my God who has saved and called me and the message He drilled deep into my bones: Real health and fitness is found in Christ alone.
If we lead our lives with the fitness (physical) foot, rather than the faith (spiritual) foot, we will find ourselves chasing after a carrot that we can never catch because our bodies are constantly getting older. My body is one day closer to ashes to ashes, dust to dust. But, living by faith first, we cannot lose hope because “Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day” (2 Corinthians 4:16).
Yet, there is something seductive about the possibility of achieving the perfect body that we will do anything to get it. This is a trap that even the most faithful follower of Jesus can fall into. Why?
Real health and fitness is found in Christ alone.
THE PROBLEM: We are living in a culture of extreme fitness. Extreme is the new normal.
Do you see it?
The ideal of fitness keeps getting leaner and leaner. The unofficial goal to see every muscle cut and diced, like a living anatomy model, is placing a yoke on men and women that is downright sick. This ideal expects people to be “show” ready every day of their life. But, the spiritual and physical cost is rarely counted.
I know this because I used to be this and require this standard of myself. This ideal is simply an unenjoyable, irritable, and anxious way to live. You obsess over food and label it self-control. You work out to get and not to give. Then you need to take endless half-naked “selfies,
in order to renew the daily covenant, you have made with your god, your stomach.
“For, as I have often told you before and now tell you again even with tears, many live as enemies of the cross of Christ. Their destiny is destruction, their god is their stomach, and their glory is in their shame. Their mind is on earthly things.” –Philippians 3:18-19
I beg you…with tears in my eyes…do not fall for it. It’s a trap! The pursuit of body beauty and preservation is an easy prison to enter, but a hard one to leave.
Friends, we are going to need to link arms on this if we are going to make it through this culture of extremes with few casualties. I share this because I know there is another way, a better way of health and wholeness.
The pursuit of body beauty and preservation is an easy prison to enter, but a hard one to leave.
In the comments below, share your experience in the fitness and health world. Have you been trapped by the pursuit of perfection? Do you want to live a life of true health and wholeness?
Alisa is the founder of Revelation Wellness and the author of The Wellness Revelation. She was born for the battle of freedom! She is an ordinary woman who spends time with Jesus who empowers her to rise up and do extraordinary things.
