All photos in this feature are by James Nwobu.
When most people think about fitness they think about hard work, body image, goals, a bit of pain, suffering and sacrifice (hopefully the fruitful kind) and achievement. But I also consider the things like connection, joy, laughter, friendship, kindness, patience and love that I’ve seen fitness provide.
Listen to Faith & Fitness Magazine’s podcast interview with David Jack.
I’ve both seen and experienced the capacity fitness has to do these very things. For instance, connecting people. It unites them. And it does so in situations, places and communities where it shouldn’t. People encouraging, supporting, listening, speaking, sharing, loving others who are different in race, religion, politics, home teams, and financial standing. The reality being one, ONE of those things is big enough to divide us, proven by the news we read everyday and the stories we’ve heard and shared for generations.
But fitness just has this way of overcoming. And it’s so successful in doing so, that I classify it as one of my “universal connectors of humanity.”
Fitness has the capacity to connect and unite people.
It does some of its best work when it’s put to work in the family. I say put to work, because there’s an effort and an art required, like with anything, for a good seed to bear good fruit. So I’ll share a few of the things I’ve discovered about fitness, family and how you might be able to use it in ways that will truly yield some great fitness.
LOOK DEEPER
Be willing to see fitness differently, like God sees people differently than we do. I PROMISE you there’s more than meets the eye. It’s not the jar that’s the most special; it’s the treasure inside. It’s not the outward appearance that means the most it’s the heart. What’s the heart of fitness?
What if beyond all the reasons you thought you needed to use fitness, you considered it was something bigger, something more? Could it be? What if it’s true that physical training is of some value, but training in the spirit is of eternal benefit? What about, dare I say it, having fun with fitness?!
It allows you to forget the cares of the world for a minute. It transforms your mind and your heart. When finished, it makes you and others feel better than when you started. What if fitness could be the outcome, and not always the goal? What if instead of being prodded, pushed, motivated, rewarded, guilted and encouraged into compliance, it was simply a side benefit of something else?
Think of it this way – try to make a client, yourself or your family member exercise because they need to do something that you, or the fitness community has deemed as important, even if it is. We ask a forty-five year old man, let’s call him John, to run on the treadmill for forty-five minutes. It’s good cardio (along with a host of other health benefits). John doesn’t love cardio, and he doesn’t love the treadmill, but he’ll do it because we ask him to and he believes it has benefit. And it does. Truly.
Let fitness be the outcome instead of the goal.
But what happens when that forty-five minute mark is up? Treadmill OFF. Done! Same guy, who isn’t an early riser by the way, rises at 5:30am to meet his friends at the local Y (one of his happy places to fit, more to come on that) and runs up and down the court practically killing himself, in a good way, to play a game he loves to play. John asks his friend Steve, “Hey Steve, when it’s 7am could you please tell me, because I really want to get to work on time?”
At 7am, being the good friend that he is, Steve yells out hey John it’s 7am. What does John do? He yells back like any kid who’s ever played something they’ve enjoyed in their life, “One more minute, it’s ok. I got one more minute”. And they play on. Until that friend says again, “Hey John, it’s 10 after”. Regretfully so, you know it’s time.
Please don’t miss this: you have to push, prod, reward, and motivate “fitness” You have to STOP play.
These are our top 10 ways to play and workout. If you have a child age 2 to 7 and you’re not doing ‘play time’, you’re missing out. This is epic!
STOP PLAY
Now, play is an interesting thing. It’s one of those words that carries connotation that does it a disservice. Consider play as contextual. It’s different for different people. On the outside the jar looks different. But on the inside, the treasure is the same. The feeling and place of an activity you’re engaged in separates you from the constraints of time and space. It’s both magical and sacred. It’s a blessing from God. You may do it rarely, but it’s available to all of us – Especially when you’re with your family, and your kids.
LET PLAY PULL YOU INTO FITNESS
Play. Don’t force. Don’t push. Leave room for the things that pull you and your kids into it. Watch them, listen to them, and respond to invitations from them. BE with them. And if it’s an activity where the body moves in space, you’re getting fitness. Good fitness. It is fitness that improves physical markers. It also improves the mental, social, emotional, relational, and spiritual markers as well.
Remember the example I gave with John. He can get forty-five minutes of cardio on the treadmill and accomplish the goal. OR, He can get over an hour of fitness by having a blast playing basketball with his friends. He gets all the benefits of play plus he get fitness as an outcome. They’re both good, but they’re a country mile apart.
THE TEACHABLE MOMENT
We can start to see how fitness has the capacity to multiply our true talents. We need to stop making fitness a “have to do” or a “be something” and instead just start letting it happen in our lives and especially within our home. In our home we have dance contests, playing random games that no one else understands or cares about. We create games, wrestle, play tag, badminton, cornhole, cops and robbers, and building obstacle courses. We call them the ‘fitness championships of the WORLD!’
Sport and fitness, without any effort on your own is a constant and amazing creator of teachable moments for you and your family.
Through this play we’re connecting, laughing, moving, sweating and smiling. Praise the Lord our kids are ASKING us to do things with them. Beyond this good there is also the not so good when we realize our kids (or we) just quick counted on hide and seek, told a lie about what the score is, made their sister feel unwelcome because this is her game, her rules and it’s getting played the way she wants it to today…
It hits us, our job as [spiritually fit] parents is to raise UP God’s children. They’re not ours. We don’t own them. They’re His. And He’s entrusted us to manage them for Him. Whoa. We remember what Jesus said “Teach them all the things I have commanded you” Matt: 28:20. We remember God telling us to teach, rebuke, correct and train in righteousness.
Sport and fitness, without any effort on your own is a constant and amazing creator of teachable moments for you and your family. It’s there. Look for it. Speak life into it. Pray about it. Be brave. When their friends are around, it’s easy to let a little thing slide especially when we’re having so much fun. But, there’s an art to this and you need grace and guidance to become a craftsman with it.
TEACH GODLY LESSONS THROUGH PLAY
Pray about the art of using fitness and sport to teach your children Godly lessons. Find the balance in teaching with love and seeing yourself in what they’re doing. Don’t ruin all the fun and play by being the lecture guy every five seconds. But, do be aware of the moments that nudge your spirit. Be willing to listen and pray for how and when to address them with love, truth and grace just like our Father in Heaven does with us.
Give them freedom, but help them become free. Build them up. Encourage them. Speak life to them. Don’t tear them down. With the right heart, teach them all the things He has commanded us, because He loves us and wants what’s best for us; to be more like Him and do His will.
THE PLACES WE “PLAY”
By now, we’re starting to get the hang of it and playing with our kids. We’re spending some of our best quality time together as a family thanks to “fitness”. We’re finding our groove managing the teachable moments. And then it it happens. The game, the activity, orthe sport falls out of favor. The kids age out. What to do now?
First, remember that fitness, play and activity are seasonal like all things. They come and go. New interests, new ages, new challenges, new desires, new capacity, all contribute to the inevitable freezer that a game or activity gets put in for a time. One of the greatest ways to keep some good fitness cooking is to let the environment or “places” do all the heavy lifting. They always do. These places make fitness fun all season – through every season of life.
Work together with your family to listen and understand what places they may want to find. When you get there, you put fitness in its place.
You see God made the world around us. And He made us to experience it. Our hearts, souls, bodies, minds and spirits are pre-wired to connect with Him this way. So we don’t have to be the creator of the next best fitness thing to keep everyone engaged. HE is the Creator and He’s already done it.
Let’s go see the crosses on top of South Mountain. Let’s go paddle down to see the waterfall in wherever. Let’s go watch Toby Mac rip it up in San Diego. Let’s learn how to hunt quail. Whatever it is that calls you to adventure, find your place. That is where you can put fitness in its place.
Work together with your family to listen and understand what places they may want to find. When you get there, you’ll find you’ve walked 10,000 steps looking at amazing objects in the Bible Museum. You’ve paddled for five miles and burned two-thousand calories to get to the waterfall. You’ve danced for two hours singing ‘I just need u’ at the top of your lungs in San Diego.
THE PLACE WHERE FITNESS FINDS YOU
See what happens? The places where you find Him are the place where you’re happy and find joy in Him. Those places are also where fitness can find you. That’s the key to how I found #myhappyplace2fit
It’s how you can find yours too.
I share all this with you to say, God loves YOU. He made a world around you to sustain you and for you to go experience and conquer. He made you to move. He made you to be in community. He designed you to come together and love one another. Fitness helps us activate this. It also helps prepare us to do the amazing things God has created for us. The things He calls us to do.
Do it your way. But don’t miss some of the ways that make it truly amazing.
