For the longest time, I was obsessed with my maxes in the olympic lifts. They fueled my desire to get better, and every rep of every set I had the next number I was chasing in the back of my head. After months of preparation and training, I would set a 5# PR, celebrate for an hour or so, then get back on my grind in pursuit of the next PR. While I think part of this is healthy and even necessary to become a better weightlifter (or CrossFitter, if that's your thing), I also think that a constant focus and obsession on PR's leads one to incorrectly evaluate their progress and performance on a day to day basis.
All to often, I see athletes get frustrated when they cannot hit their PR in a normal training day halfway through a cycle. "I could only snatch 135 today and my PR is 145..." they often utter in dismay. What is going on in my head is "Congratulations!!! You just hit 97%! That's great!" The thing is, they weren't supposed to PR that day- the cycle was not designed for them to be strongest midway through, it was designed to have them beat to crap midway through. The fact that they could hit 97% when their body is under fatigue is not only impressive, but encouraging. What we should be chasing after is minimums, not maximums.
This concept was brought to my attention by the great Donny Shankle, one of America's greatest weightlifters. What Donny so thoughtfully observed is that it is far more indicative of a weightlifter's status to observe their minimums (the number that they can hit on any given day) than their maximums (the number they got lucky and hit one time on a perfect day after 3 cups of coffee and 11 attempts). I have taken this to heart, and find that if I am constantly raising my minimums, then I am improving as a lifter. Being able to walk into the gym every single day and snatch at least 225, even on the days where we are sore and slept terrible the night before, is better and more telling than being able to hit 235 once every six weeks. This better prepares you for competitions as well, as you cannot always count on hitting your maximums, but can bank upon minimums.
As with many things, this got me thinking about my pursuit of Christ. So often, we evaluate our walks based on spiritual maximums- those Sabbath days where the stars just seem to align. We wake up early, get a cup of coffee and dig into the word for an hour and a half, then spend some time journaling, then listen to worship music or a podcast on the way to work, then hum hymns between conversations with our co-workers about Christ, then come home and serve our roommates well before going on a walk where we pray the whole time. I'm being a bit facetious, I know, but let's be honest- it's easy to romanticize that day as if all days were like that. Life, though, is not always a mountaintop experience, but rather a series of peaks and valleys. Thus, what usually follows a day like that (at least for me) is several days in a row of not spending time in the word, feeling as if my prayers are bouncing off the ceiling, and hardly any joy in my pursuit and proclamation of the goodness of God.
What I propose is a new approach; determining that through grace driven effort we will strive to be more like Christ not just in a mountain-top-every-so-often way, but on a daily basis by saturating our lives in His word, His community, and in prayer with Him. This becomes particularly important on days where we just aren't feeling it- making a concerted effort to draw near to Him. The concept is the same as in weightlifting- raising my minimums, only now in regards to my Gospel saturation. By raising the minimum amount of saturation, I am in time creating a deeper communion with my King, a more steadfast pursuit of being His image bearer, and a more ferocious defense against what is dark in my heart and in the world. It should be noted that love begets discipline, not the other way around- in other words our love should fuel our discipline. The end goal is not discipline for discipline's sake; the end goal is to know Christ more deeply and fully, and in doing so be transformed into His image. Discipline is simply the vehicle by which this occurs.
Just a thought. Blessings
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