Instant Seasoning

INSTANT IN SEASON AND OUT OF SEASON

Greetings friends!

Life is busy, very busy. A quick note today. The pastor of our church is sick today (those of you who believe, please pray), and through a series of minor happenings I found out at about 4 o’clock that I might need to pinch hit for him at tonight’s service. Putting aside the ridiculousness that most people fear public speaking more than death, those who wouldn’t rather commit suicide than stand up in front of people might be freaking out about having to do it on short notice. Well I think that as an adult you should be working toward losing any fear or lack of ability of handling things on short notice. That includes your physical, spiritual and mental life.

Now it might be different if you asked me to preach a seven day, two service a day revival with 10 minutes notice, but little challenges come up every day in every area of your life and it shouldn’t take us a week’s prep to be able to handle those things. Number one, life moves too fast for that. Number two think of all the opportunities you miss by stepping away from a challenge, because you need more prep time.

Is your physical training leading you to be able to jump in at a moment’s notice? One of the most profound things anyone in strength ever said to me was a guy named Mickey Strickland and was one of the first guys I ever lifted weights with. We were discussing suits, wraps and bench shirts and the state of preparation needed to perform a competitive powerlift. He kind of laughed and said, “You know I train for my life. If something heavy falls on my wife or kid I don’t want to have to run in the house and spend 20 minutes to put on knee wraps, suit and a belt to pick it up off of them.” I was young at the time, but the realization of the truth of that statement hit me like a ton of bricks. If your training isn’t increasing your ability to live your life as well as use your physical strengths and pursue whatever other goals you might have then something is wrong.

The same is true for your mental and spiritual life. It’s not enough to say you have a positive or unconquerable attitude, you have to actually put it into practice on a regular basis. It’s not enough to know a little about what you believe spiritually or your job or whatever other mental challenge you might face. If you’re not learning it inside out and developing confidence in your ability to express yourself in those areas something is wrong.

So how do you solve this? Practice. The more prepped you are in any area the better you’ll perform at jumping in at the last minute. That includes prayer and knowledge on your spiritual beliefs, confidence and a clear well organized mind and physical traits of useable strength and endurance. Guess what? You can build a lot of those traits all at the same time with your physical strength. Confidence and clarity are built through hard physical training. The greater your confidence, the greater your ability to apply yourself mentally and physically. Are you heading in the right direction prepping to meet the challenges of your life?