View Larger Map of Brad's 3-week route through Nigeria
I learned a key insight to life –
how to value something more than life.
During our time together I learned some about him. His time with us meant he was not spending time with his young son Lohodido – clearly dear to his heart. I learned about how he had been raised, how he found God in church, how he liked to be physically active, what his current job entailed, his plans for the future, his marriage and — the recent death of his wife. I also learned a very key insight to life – how to value something more than life.
Today we are thoroughly and almost hopelessly immersed in a generational mindset and culture that elevates life as the supreme essence. Every waking moment everything we do revolves around not just the preservation of life but also the lust of life. We unconsciously measure each breath by consciously wanting to feel good (avoid pain), have success (resist failure), gain wealth (never lack) and more, more, MORE!!!
We jockey for that promotion, aggressively pursue that higher status and manipulate for more money. Our lust to control our own domains is out of control. We lavish ourselves with the latest looks, accessories and toys, diets, magical pills and supplements, advantageous relationships and social status, training programs and services, medical procedures, self-fabricated personalities and anything and everything we can possibly imagine and create to tweak out every last drop physically, sexually, socially, financially, emotionally, professionally and personally. And we’re gonna let everybody know just how good we are at doing it. AND by-golly if we can circumvent God, find a workaround solution to reality and cheat death — we’re all over that. “Don’t talk to me about LUST. I own today!” (Christians add the tagline, “Praise God, Hallelujah.”)
I saw a social post that a successful bodybuilder recently made, “I’m feeling blessed. I am doing what I love and it’s paying off. No matter what your goals, don’t stop. If you want it bad enough, you’ll get it.”
This sounds good but Satan is using our very words and desires to deceive us. When you are truly being blessed by God you won’t be “feeling it” like that. You’ll be doing things that you may not “love” but that are very necessary. You’ll likely not see the immediate “pay off.” Most certainly what YOUR (personal self-driven) goals are need to be “stopped” because as long as you want what YOU WANT you’ll never get what God has for you. You’ll never be able to give what God has for others.
SaAndo had discovered this. He had lost the most precious thing to him – his wife. He certainly had not chosen that but he was ready to value God more. In doing that he had been liberated from every limit that attempted to affix itself to his life. His longing had been transformed to transcend life itself.
Lust: Thirst, Desire, Ache, Venture and Embrace.
Give your life without reservation.
You need to have a lust for life. It is the kind of lust where you lose the most precious thing to you – “your life.” Pray that you will have that epiphany where you ask, “Dear God! – What am I doing with my life? This never-to-be repeated lifetime you have given me.” Thirst for that moment. Desire that level of desperation. Then ache for the revelation. Venture into the spiritual land where self-discipline pales in comparison to the total abandon God demands of you. Embrace an obsession that defies understanding.
The lust for life isn’t about seeing how much you can get out of life it is about God engaging this world and being revealed through you as you give your life without reservation. That lust pushes you to discover, understand, embrace and then relentlessly BE that supreme purpose that God has authored for you.
That’s faith and it will absolutely shape everything you’ve ever known about fitness.
