Shaping up...I mean it

I don't care for New Year's resolutions. I really don't. It never has made sense to me that we have picked an arbitrary day, January 1, as the day when we promise ourselves that we'll do something different with our lives. Oh, I do it. But it still seems random to me. And we all know that they often don't last.

So I'm going to claim that it is just a coincidence that this week I have decided to get serious about getting myself back into better shape. I will try to convince everyone (and myself) that it's not a New Year's resolution; it just so happens that football tailgating, snacking while watching games, and Christmas food have gotten me to this point. So, since those things are over, it seems like a logical time to reverse the trend.

Good physical health is a tricky thing. I believe that many of our reasons for dieting and exercising are not the best. We want to look better. We want to be more attractive to the opposite sex. We want to live longer. We want to feel better. We want to keep from having to buy new, bigger clothes. None of these are bad things. But I don't think this list includes the real reason that I need to get serious.

Looks are fleeting and temporary; we will eventually grow old and wrinkled no matter what. And no matter how long we live, we are going to die. No matter how healthy we were. Feeling better as we grow old is probably the best of the motives listed. Who wants to be a burden to their family in their old age? But it's still not the best.

The real reason for me is much, much more basic. It's simply this: God has put this body in my care, but it does not belong to me. Like everything else in creation, he owns it. So...if I have been entrusted with the care of someone's house, shouldn't I make sure it stays in good repair? Well, to me, it should be the same with my body. I should realize that it is not mine, and the owner is trusting me to take good care of it.

I haven't been doing that lately. Not too long ago, I was doing the ropes course at Windy Gap. And everything else my high school friends were doing. That would not be so easy now, and I'm not happy about it. Probably for every reason I've listed, but hopefully mostly because I know God wants me to take better care of what he has entrusted to me.

So I'm ready to shape up. I mean it. I started Monday, and I plan to follow through. Not because it's January, but because it's now. God grant me the resolve to follow through.

Ready. Set. Go.