Faith and Life: Fitness can be Worship {a guest post}

Fitness and nutrition are topics that most people do not enjoy talking about let alone take part in. I used to be one of those people. I do not write this as a guilt trip for you to go run a mile and feel better or to go eat a salad and call it a day. 

My mindset and motivation about health and fitness changed when I realized my calling to my family is to be a faithful steward. Being healthy and fit no longer affects me; it affects my family, with which God has blessed me. If your motivation behind your health and fitness is merely “I want to look good” or “I want to be skinny”, then your consistency in reaching those goals will fall apart. When your motivation is driven by the desire to be a faithful steward of the blessings God has given to you (namely your body and family), then your motivation will be physically and spiritually beneficial and your consistency will stay intact.

I love the phrase: “You cannot pour from an empty cup.” It is vitally important that we take care of our bodies and minds and “fill” them up so we can pour or invest ourselves into others. A healthy lifestyle is the best gift you can give your family and one of the most honoring ways to worship your Creator.

A whole other facet within fitness and healthy living is training. There is benefit to training and pushing your physical body further than you thought possible. (I Timothy 4:7-8). God has made our bodies with intricacies that even today’s doctors and scientist don’t fully understand. To use my body and mind and take care of the vessel God so amazingly designed is a way to say “Thank You” to Him.

So let’s take this a little further in how this can impact our relationships. While we can train our bodies and make healthy nutritional choices and focus on stewarding our own bodies wisely, it’s a lot more enjoyable with a friend! Sharing fitness and nutrition with others, and more importantly the motivation behind my fitness and nutrition, becomes yet another act of stewardship. Some of my closest relationships have been built through fitness and accountability, accountability within fitness and my spiritual life. Learning to become vulnerable and accountable to others in fitness and in spiritual matters has been one of the biggest blessings in learning how to be a good steward.  

In conclusion, it is important to realize that being a faithful steward is not only reserved for finances and material possessions. God has blessed me with a physical body that I am “stewarding” for Him. My calling and responsibility is to take care of it and make wise choices in an effort to be healthy. When I make wise choices to “fill” my cup up, pouring into others’ lives is much more effective. I definitely am not 100% consistent in the area of nutrition and fitness, but I do make decisions daily to work toward the goal of living a healthy life and being a positive example for my family as an act of worship to God. When Biblical stewardship is your motivation behind why you desire to be fit and make healthy nutritional choices, then it absolutely becomes awesome worship of an incredible God.

((Hannah Cartledge is a wife and a momma to a sweet baby girl. She is also a BeachBody Coach with a passion for fitness as a ministry. Find her at www.beachbodycoach.com/hcartledge)).

Interested in a free sample of Shakeology through Hannah? The first 10 readers to contact her via her website, on Facebook, or through email (Cartledge_Hannah@yahoo.com) can get one! Just let her know I sent ya ;)