Yesterday I opened my First 5 App and the title was “Honoring God with My Temple” and I immediately hooked. In the past year and a half I have really worked to change my focus of my fitness from vanity reasons to just that: honoring God with my Temple. The truth is though, even though I wrote about my Faith and Fitness correlation here and I truly try to live it out each day, I still struggle… and lately I have been struggling big time.
I know what 1 Corinthians 6:19-20 says, but I have not been “honoring God with my body.” Have I been working out? Of course. Have I been fueling my temple well? Yes. But for what reason? Recently I have found myself taking my eyes off of the real reason for my fitness: to honor God, to have enough energy to liven out His purpose for me each day and have found myself coming back to those vanity purposes for my workouts. I know I shouldn’t. This is what I encourage other women not to do and it is hard– it is a difficult transition.
Four Ways to Make your Fitness Faith-Driven
As I have found myself focusing too much on losing this baby weight, I have had to take a step back and figure out how I can refocus my workouts to make sure that I am honoring God and using that time not just as a time to work on my fitness, but also as time to think, pray and be intentional in my faith. When I workout alone, I have used these four ways to make my fitness more faith-driven.
Set the intention for your workout
I have read a lot about productive people who set the intention for their day and I have recently taken this approach to my workouts. Since I have found myself back to focusing too much on the vanity purposes of my workout (i.e. if I do one more set of these lunges maybe my legs will look more toned), I have started setting the intention for my workout each morning. During today’s workout I ran half mile intervals between training my legs and my intention to push harder was to help my legs get stronger (not thinner) so I could carry my both boys up the stairs. Sometimes my intention is as simple as “Today I am using this workout as a stress reliever to clear my mind so I can show more grace to my children today.”
Pray & Listen
When I set out for a run, it is really multi-tasking because I spend the majority of my run in prayer and meditation. Sometimes I say the same prayer over and over and some times I just try to listen to what God is wanting me to hear. I don’t run with music so this is the perfect time for me to pray and listen to God. So if you see me on a trail and it looks like I am talking, I am, I am truly praying out loud as I log my morning miles.
Think About & Memorize Scripture
I try (keyword is try) to ready my First 5 devotion in the morning as I am nursing S or even just the verse of the day on the Bible App. When I do this I then usually have a verse in my mind as I am working out and try to repeat it in my head over and over and think about how I can live out God’s word today.
Listen to a faith-based podcast or Christian Music
Although I don’t listen to music as I run, when I am lifting weights or doing a HIIT workout in my driveway, sometimes I like to put a podcast on my JBL speaker while I am working out. If I haven’t read a devotion before getting to my workout this is a great way for me to multi task. I am a big fan of Focus on the Family and The Busy Moms Podcast with Heidi St. John. If you like to listen to music, think about creating yourself a Praise song playlist.
I am human, I am not perfect and I am so thankful for God’s grace because I don’t always honor Him with my body. I am a work in progress. However I do find that my day goes much smoother, I find my heart and mind in the right place when I start my day not just with a workout, but with a workout that is faith-driven by setting my intention, praying, thinking about scripture and even listening to a faith-based podcast. I hope this encourages you to find a small way to honor God through your workout too.
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