So I have a confession to make to all of you. I am not a finisher! I know, I know you all are going to say "Cut yourself some slack!" and you are right. However, there was a time when this is what I told myself every day. I can still conjure up that sick feeling I so willingly allowed myself to wallow in. I often thought to myself "why even bother starting that, you are just going to give up after a few weeks and things will go back to how they were." Was I deranged in my thinking?? Yes!.... Was I being honest?? Absolutely! You see I had created that person. Slowly and painstakingly I wrote my future. Looking back it is clear to me that it was my lack of self-confidence, and lack of living in my Salvation in Christ that lead me to not be a finisher. I didn't fully comprehend (and really still don't) the creature God had created. "How Beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news, who proclaim peace, who bring good tidings, who proclaim salvation, who say to Zion "Your God reigns!" (Isaiah 52:7) How foolish I had been not to realize that God created each of us with a unique set of talents. A set of beautiful tools to use for HIS glory. I was stuck in thinking that everything depended on me, and whatever I did was reflecting back on me. Instead I should have known that everything depended on God and should have been reflecting back on him. After all I was not put on this earth to find personal glory, or to seek the approval of my peers, but rather to bring Glory to my Creator, my Savior, my everything, and to seek his approval and his approval alone. It is still a battle I fight every day but one I take on willingly now instead of with fear and hesitation. In hind sight I now know that I have the opportunity to be better in Christ; "Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: the old has gone, the new is here!" (2 Corinthians 5:17)
What does this have to do with fitness and living a healthy life you ask? Well, it is everything! What is a home without a proper foundation? A lamp without a stand? A car without wheels? A body without bones? NOTHING! So if we can understand that those things cannot properly exist without each other; why is it so difficult for us to realize that with out Christ WE are nothing. Without Christ I am just a non finisher who continues to run in circles. A hamster stuck on that annoying, squeaky wheel never to finish the race. Can you relate? Do you feel what I am feeling? That sense of not being enough. The pain of always letting people down and in the end yourself? Christ did not die for our sins so that we could continue to feel like we are not enough. He has made you enough. Once you realize that, anything is possible. A day has new meaning and instead of just being a pawn in someone else's game you are a beautiful instrument carrying out God's work. Oh! The goosebumps as you feel the Salvation of Christ just washing over you and making you NEW!
So now let's get to it. My post today is all about new beginnings. I knew that I should start from the best beginning ever! The one that washes our entire past away. Now that we can live in the "NEW CREATION" It is much easier to let yourself start over again. Today, you will adopt a new attitude. Instead of being that no body who can't ever finish anything ect.... You will be a somebody who finishes! Why? Because Christ made you a finisher. Everything you lacked he has given back to you by dying on the cross. You are now perfect in your Heavenly Father's eyes. Ugh! Yes! Just say that to yourself and nothing can stop you.
So going back to the beginning, once I figured out that whenever I messed up it was ok. I could just start over the next day or even in that very moment and I was forgiven and made new! I heard once from my dear friend Heidi Goelzer who got this from a friend "You can start a diet in the middle of a bag of chips," I truly took it one day at a time. I worked at making every day a good day even when the rain came and things didn't go how I planned. It's never easy and I still struggle with my old self every day, but it's worth it and I see that now.
Christ has made you beautiful and it is about time you start living your life that way. Instead of allowing your past to define your future use it to CHANGE your future. You hear people say "By the Grace of God go I" and you can say that to yourself every day. Accept that without God you are nothing and would still be nothing if Christ hadn't died for you. It's awesome isn't it? Now you get to have millions of new beginning with no questions asked.
Forgive yourself for yesterday and start anew today.
Blessings from the one who gave us the the most beautiful new beginning we could ever ask for,
Jamie Lee
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