So Lynn and I went jogging today — 3.4 miles.  I didn’t really like it.  I mean I enjoyed being with her, but jogging stinks.  A friend introduced me to a place called the Fitness Circuit, in fact he paid for me to go for a few months.  (Somewhat off the topic, but good advice — Husbands never buy your wife a membership to any kind of fitness thing, unless she asks.  Even then argue with her for awhile about the fact that she really doesn’t need it.)  So anyway I go to the Fitness Circuit a few times a week.

--a before picture--

These guys get paid to make me do things I would never do on my own, because the morning after the only muscles I can feel — hurt.  I even go to the Y.  Which sometimes in my mind should be spelled “whY?”  At the whY — I have gone as far as 6.4 miles on the treadmill — yes all in one evening.  But here’s the deal about a treadmill, you run all that time and you end up in exactly the same spot as you started.

And of course I weigh myself daily — sometimes if Lynn will let me — multiple times a day.  Someone once said that when you’re trying to get in shape, the scale is not your friend.  Which is good because I’ve thought some really bad thoughts about my scale.  One day it tells me I lost 1 pound, the next day I gained 2.  It toys with me.  Anyway, I’m doing all this because I’m trying to “get in shape.”  I’ve lost almost 20 pounds.  Well actually I’ve lost about 35, but one of those pounds I think I’ve lost and found about 35 times.

But I have to be honest, I have at times prayed, “God couldn’t  you just zap me?  You know some kind of miraculous lipo-suction?”  I mean I believe that God can heal diseases and my fat is a disease.  But so far he hasn’t done that.  I think he’s going to make me get in shape little by little, even though I wish he would do it lots by lots.  I guess he feels that there is something I need to learn in the process, that when it comes to getting in shape, the journey is somehow just as important as the destination.

So why is it that we think it’s any different with our hearts?  With our character?  Why is it that we keep asking God to do a miraculous sin-po-suction that will give our hearts the shape of Jesus — right now?  Do you suppose that little by little, learning in the process, persevering in the disappointments, 1 pound better, then 2 pounds worse, is his best way of getting our hearts in shape?

I won’t give up — shaping my body — or my heart?

How’s the shape of your heart?