faithrunner

This month I have been lifting weights with a couple of NFL Alumni . Well, mostly with one of them...a 6'5" 300-lb lineman. I look like his scrawny dad when we are walking around the gym from station to station. He has been kind enough to show me the ins and outs of his lifting regimen, which I have not done since High School football days. (I graduated in 1971.) I joined them at the start of this year because I need the extra strength for my one big goal of summitting Mt. Rainier in August.  I have learned you grow stronger through lifting by literally tearing the muscle as you lift . As the muscle heals over the next 24-48 hours, it becomes stronger. Learning not to tear the muscle too much while increasing the weight is part of the practice. You also become stronger by covering all the muscle groups with a variety of motions. Soreness is also part of the strengthening process. If you are not sore, you are not lifting enough to improve. (There's a spiritual p...

I want to kick off my new year on the topic of spiritual wellness. It is a primary theme in my new book , A New Way of Living: Practicing the Beatitudes Everyday .  Much has been written about physical wellness and how exercise and diet are essential elements to health and longevity, but how do you know if you are spiritually well? The Beatitudes --like physical vital signs -- can serve as a baseline for your spiritual health . How can you know where you are in your spiritual development? Just as you would take your pulse, temperature, blood pressure, and rate of breathing to measure your health physically, you can gauge your spiritual health by measuring your attitudes and behavior against what Jesus considered "blessed" in his teachings recorded in Matthew 5:3-10 . Jesus not only blessed certain spiritual conditions as he looked out over his disciples and the crowd that gathered to hear him, but I believe he also revealed characteristics of who he wanted his...