I am going to let
you in on a little secret I need you to keep to yourself. Sometimes when I go to the gym, I stick my
headphones in my ears but don’t have any music playing. It’s all for looks. I found that people won’t interrupt your
workout as much if you have ear buds in, I know I have tried it. The thing that bothers me at the gym is, to
some people, the gym is like the barber shop; you come more for the social environment,
to talk, catch up about the weekend’s mayhem with the grandkids, or the macaroni
you cooked for dinner on Saturday night, than they do to workout.
For me the gym
is exactly what it is there for, to workout, 45 minutes on weights and 45
minutes on cardio. I don’t factor in
“talk time” into my routine. If I do entertain a conversation at the gym, then
my workout becomes much less effective. Therefore I have no problem sticking
ear buds into my ears with no music piping through them as I am protecting what
I am paying for at the gym.
With this
mentality, I was working out last Monday on the assisted dip machine. I was doing a set of 8 workouts on this
machine. On my third set, I noticed in
my peripheral vision an elderly woman awkwardly staring at me. I played it off as
if I didn’t see her. But I could only
manage to do that for two more sets as she caught me glancing back at her. In that fifth set I was challenged with,
“Greg, if you care more about souls than you do…” “Ugh, I just want to work out God, would you
stop with this conviction stuff at inopportune times.”
After my fifth
set, I took out my ear buds, and I turn to the lady who has now moved to an
uncomfortable two feet from me and is staring at me without blinking.
“Ma’am, do you
need help?” I said. Those words rolled off my tongue with a
compassion that surprised me. I found in that moment that I truly came to a
place where my assisted dips could wait in order to talk to this woman who
clearly had something on her mind. But I
did not know that until I set the weights down and turned to the lady to engage
her.
“I just came
from the gym down the street and they didn’t have one of those machines, I
wonder if I could do it, being as fat as I am.”
(Those were her words!). “Let me
help you try”, I replied as I adjusted the assisted weight to the full amount
(which equaled about half her body weight).
“I am scared, I don’t think I can”, she uttered back with a tone that
implied that she wanted to at least try.
“Ma’am, I’ll help you out, you can do it.”
She was right;
we barely made it through one rep together.
“Well I guess this machine just isn’t for fat people” (her words again! Don’t
judge me) “Well”, I replied, “I guess that is why we are all here.”
She thanked me
and left.
Then I thought,
WEIRD!
I’ve never seen
that woman before, she pops up at a time in my life that I am working through
some God moments, and then disappears.
She was clearly
a test for me to reveal where I was at with this lesson God was teaching me
about caring more for souls than bills or other pointless things in life like
ripped out triceps.
God has tested
his children from the beginning. We see
this in Exodus as God tests the nation of Israel, in order to reveal their
adherence to the Sabbath law or not.
Exodus 16:4; Then the Lord said to Moses, “Behold, I am about to rain bread from heaven for you, and the people shall go out and gather a day’s portion every day, that I may test them, whether they will walk in my law or not.”
This test would
reveal Israel’s trust and reliance upon God for their daily bread, even on the
Sabbath when it didn’t rain bread. Some
failed the test and revealed their lack of faith in Yahweh; others nailed the
test as they truly learned to walk in faith.
God will often
test you in life, like he did the Israelites.
The thing about the test is, they aren’t for God to know where we are at
in our journey with Him (for God knows the words that come from our lips before
we speak them as seen in Psalm 139:4), rather tests are indicators for us to
determine weaknesses or strengths in our life.
God knew the outcome of this encounter with this woman at the gym before
it ever started, but I didn’t. After it
culminated, I was more aware of the fact that I can set things down in life
that have very little meaning in order to get to love someone.
Maybe right now
you are being tested in life. It could
be a financial decision, or a relational decision. Maybe it’s similar to my test. Either way, these tests are the grace of God
poured out onto our lives in order to give us mile markers in which we can
gauge our Christian maturity.
If you call
yourself a Christian, then tests will come along the way. It’s not necessarily a matter of passing or
failing them, rather it is a matter of learning from them. The question is, will you?
I hope I
do. I truly want to be more receptive
and open to people throughout my day, caring less about things that have no
eternal value in them. The Lord showed
me last week, through that small test at the gym that I can do this.
