Exercise in Boredom and Faith

 

Whenever you visit the zoo and you see the polar bear pacing back and forth in a repetitive motion, it is most likely because he's bored.

In the past few years zoos have spent several million dollars to enhance the animals exhibits so they closely relate to that of nature.

 

 

I never really gave much thought and investigation into this until my Saturday morning workout this past weekend. Toward the end of my run I climb 4 flights of stairs near a most recently closed tobbagon sled run. On most Saturdays you will find at least 50 people who will climb up and down those stairs at least 20-25 times. On this particular Saturday there were close to 100 exercising buffs climbing those stairs. I, being a runner, am not a big fan of climbing up and down cement stairs. Those that do think they are getting a healthy workout, but in reality, climbing cement stairs is not good on your knees.

 

For the life of me I can't figure out why anyone would want to do this repetitive motion several times, rather than finding adventure through the woods itself. To me, I find the repetitive motion boring just like the pacing polar bear.

 

Exercising can be fun and it serves a purpose, just like when we exercise our faith. The Apostle Peter gives us the importance of exercising our faith and what we can become through that exercising; one that enhances fruitful growth in our faith:

 

For this very reason, adding your diligence to the divine promises, employ every effort in exercising your faith to develop virtue, and in exercising virtue develop knowledge(intelligence),

 

And in exercising knowledge develop self-control, and in exercising self-control develop steadfastness(patience), and in exercising steadfastness develop godliness,

 

And in exercising godliness develop brotherly affection, and in exercising brotherly affection develop Christian love.

 

That's alot of exercising to do but it builds up our character and faith and serves a purpose:

 

For as these qualities are yours and increasingly abound in you, they will keep you from being idle or unfruitful unto the personal knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.

 

Peter also discloses that whoever lacks in these qualities is blind, spiritually shortsighted, seeing only what is near to him.

 

(all text taken from 2 Peter 1:5-10)

 

To be spiritually blinded is forgetting what God's Word says and living through the circumstance in fear.

 

Our faith cannot grow without some kind of trial or circumstance; so I am eternally grateful for the things that I have went through that strengthened my faith. I, like most Christians, sometimes will fall into a momentary lapse of faith. What is happening is we are forgetting who we are in Christ.

 

For if anyone is a hearer of the Word and not a doer, he is like a man observing his natural face in a mirror;

for he observes himself, goes away, and immediately forgets what kind of man he was. (James 1:23,24)

 

 I know I have just thrown a bunch of scriptures at you, but that is just it, we need to remind ourselves who we are through God's Word and what God expects from us. We become strengthened when we seek God's Word for our lives daily.

 

If you live in an area with no access to a Bible, please checkout www.biblegateway.com for more of God's encouraging Word to build your faith upon.