I love working out. Unfortunately, working out doesn’t love me.
What I mean by that is I’m not one of those people who feels inner peace while they’re working out. There’s no runner’s high or celebratory slapping my chest after a new PR. I know that’s the reality for a bunch of people. I also think those people are crazy.
For me, my biggest thought while working out is “when will this be done?”. It’s not until I’m walking out to my car, sweaty and tired, that I want to turn around and go right back in and do it all again. Maybe I’m on some sort of delay, I don’t know. But when working out gets particularly rough and I just want to quit I always tell myself the same thing: Just ten more minutes.
Now, half the time I’m telling myself that five minutes into a forty-five minute workout. You don’t need to be a math whiz to know that what I’m telling myself isn’t accurate to where the end of my workout should be. But I’m not telling myself when I can quit. I’m telling myself to do this hard thing for just ten more minutes and then we’ll see how we feel about quitting. And when that ten minutes is up I have the same conversation with myself again. Again and again. As many times as it takes to get where I’m going. And it works, every time without fail. Narrowing the focus down to the immediate makes the hard things easier to bear.
I’m not the first person to take this approach. Athletes, soldiers, and any other tough souls out there know this tactic. And unsurprisingly, like all good things, we find that this method of approaching hard things is deeply rooted in how God wants us to attack life and follow him.
In Matthew 6, we find Jesus speaking to this very concept, albeit much more eloquently than I ever could.
‘Look at the birds. They don’t plant or harvest or store food in barns, for your heavenly Father feeds them. And aren’t you far more valuable to him than they are? Can all your worries add a single moment to your life?
“And why worry about your clothing? Look at the lilies of the field and how they grow. They don’t work or make their clothing, yet Solomon in all his glory was not dressed as beautifully as they are. And if God cares so wonderfully for wildflowers that are here today and thrown into the fire tomorrow, he will certainly care for you. Why do you have so little faith?
“So don’t worry about these things, saying, ‘What will we eat? What will we drink? What will we wear?’ These things dominate the thoughts of unbelievers, but your heavenly Father already knows all your needs. Seek the Kingdom of God above all else, and live righteously, and he will give you everything you need.
“So don’t worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring its own worries. Today’s trouble is enough for today.’ (Matthew 6:26-34)
It’s hard to get more straightforward than that, or more loving. When it’s just me working out, I’m telling myself not too look too far ahead so I can focus on what I need to do in the moment. But Jesus is telling us that this is something to be applied to our entire lives, not just so we can focus on what’s ahead of us, but because God is already handling it.
This isn’t an ignorant or flippant approach, asking us to stick out fingers in our ears, shut our eyes, and ignore what’s happening in out lives. We’re not being asked to ignore the problems in our world. We’re being told to focus on the ones in front of us that we can actually do something about and leave the rest to God.
Will the problems of tomorrow still be there when the sun rises? Maybe. But who knows what work God will have been doing while you slept. Those problems might be unrecognizable when you wake up.
Your job was never to be the one solving all the problems. Your job is to be faithful and keep hanging on. That’s it. For however many minutes or seconds you need to break it down to to focus, just deal with the immediate and give the rest to God. It was never your fight in the first place. It never could be your fight. He can do more work with you in surrender than you could ever do on your own fighting tooth and nail.
So whatever it is your dealing with, make like the birds and the lilies and just handle today. The next ten minutes are all that’s on your plate, and you can handle that. Just hold on for ten more minutes.
Let’s find some joy,
A
Avalon Robinson Author 