photo taken winter 2012 on Mt. Bachelor, Bend, Oregon; quote added using GoVerse (about GoVerse)
I’ve been training for a Tough Mudder, coming up in a month. I’ll have more blogs about different aspects of this coming soon, but I wanted to share an insight I’ve gained during my training. And, thankfully, what I’ve discovered has had impact far beyond my morning workouts.
What I found is that if I start my training, and go through my mental preparation, trying to find out IF I can do it, I have a pretty tough time. But if I start off my training with the assurance that I CAN do it, and therefore, I am doing this because I can, my training is exponentially more harmonious, invigorating, and effective.
This has expanded out to this realization: if I start my day wondering what’s going to happen – am I going to feel better later, how is this appointment going to go – then I’m always waiting to see what the next minute brings and am unable to find a sense of success or peace because that peace depends on the future. But, if I start my day with the assurance of the PRESENCE of success, that I was made to be vibrant, healthy, capable, aware, then my day becomes the joyful living of that success which is already present. I remember a statement painted on our high school wrestling room wall: “We aren’t champions because we win. We win, because we are champions.” In other words, our identity is already established, and our lives can attest to the fact of who we are.
Now, in the normal course of my day, I’m not competing with anyone to try to ‘win’ my day. Rather, the ‘winning’ could be defined as breaking limits and persisting in living bravely and joyously. The same holds true for the Tough Mudder; in the Tough Mudder pledge, the first statement is, “I understand that Tough Mudder is not a race but a challenge.” And challenges – be they physical, mental, relationship, financial… – aren’t about some future finish line. They’re about persisting, right now, in seeing who you truly are.
Are we reactive people, basing our happiness, health, possibilities, on the circumstances around us or the whims of others? Or is it possible that we are actually the effect of the existence of LIFE itself – we are what happens because LIFE IS – and therefore our days are endless opportunities to see what YOUR unique expression is?
I’m not basing that possibility on some cheery hypothetical thought. It’s actually based in the Scriptural promise of Christ Jesus, when he declared that ‘the kingdom of God is within you.’ (Luke 17:21) This is only natural, considering the identity statement found in Genesis 1:27: “So God created man in His own image…” Man is not God – you are not some little deity running around – but, just like a photograph or a reflection in a mirror is the image of someone, so we are the image of God. In the Bible, Paul would share his understanding of this in these words: “…in Him we live, and move, and have our being.” (Acts 17:28)
Will we then turn to whatever circumstances surround the image, to find out anything about the truth of that image? Or will we turn to the Source to see what is possible for the image – the effect of that great Cause?
Will we follow the assurance of divine Love?
