Athletic Indifference

I don’t like to exercise. I’m not an athlete. Competition makes me nervous. If you want to be first and win, I’ll gladly step aside. The concept of sweating for pleasure is foreign to me. I’d rather sit and read, exercising the muscle between my ears. But recently an ugly truth has surfaced in my miry brain—if you don’t step up and play some games, you run the risk of becoming a pawn.

My weight, like most Americans, has increased with my age. In the past two years, I cringe to admit, I’ve started taking prescriptions to battle the side effects of obesity. Of course the doctor never says lose weight, he just hands me another script.

I was teasing our daughter the other day about being an exercise fanatic, and she reminded me she’s an athlete, training for a triathlon. This got me to thinking; I’m in training for a stroke. My mouth keeps saying I’m going to lose weight, but that muscle between my ears lies. Sitting there in the dark, it’s only fooling me.

So—enlighten, what do I do? “Run the race with perseverance,” is the Apostle Paul’s encouragement to disciples. Disciple being the root of discipline, I’m lacking. Not being an athlete, I never quite grasped that running metaphor in the past. Maybe because I didn’t want to lay down my idol worship of food and join the race.

Hum…, I need to keep my eyes on the prize and sweat a little more.