Gym Membership

I bought a gym membership.

I’m not sure what came over me, really, because I’ve spent most of my life viewing exercise as just another form of corporal punishment. Like being flogged or something. Except you’re doing it willingly, so that’s masochism, right?

Anyway now I know that perspective’s dumb, and I have a wife to remind me of its dumbness on a regular basis.

I use to tease Jon about how working out is just another way for guys to nurse their enormous egos, get girls, try to look cool, etc. But I only said that because I didn’t wanna work out.

And – as an aside – it’s kind of amazing how often I do stuff like this. I did the exact same thing with blogging. I teased some of my college buds about how sappy their blogging was, but now here I am… yet again eating my words. It’s true, though, there seems to be a lot of insecurity at gyms like this, but that’s no excuse.

I know this is a pretty unpopular belief in a lot of Christian circles, but the way we take care of our bodies (or lack thereof) matters to God. We much prefer to think that the outside is all that matters and as long as you’re not obscenely obese you’re pretty much ok, but I think a pursuit of all-around wellness matters a lot to God. You could argue that Daniel and his bros wouldn’t eat the king’s food for ceremonial reasons (which is definitely true), but I think it was a health-issue, too. And there are other examples.

Anyway, this gym is called California Wow and it’s … interesting. You can tell there’s a lot of superficiality to it when there are all these awkward English words plastered all over the walls like, “sexier!”, “ripped!”, “more power!” (Tim Taylor, anyone?), and “six pack!”, just to name a few. But a bunch of guys at Newsong go there, and it’s a great way for Cayla and I to stay active together. Not to mention the gym’s only a 6 or 7 minute walk from our place and even less than that from my work.

So here goes nothing! I actually need to stop typing now, though, because I just threw up the bar and a couple 25 pounders and I’ve seriously lost all feeling in my arms.

Pretty stout, huh? Beat that Jon Canterbury, beat that.

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