I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror as I was getting ready to leave my house. You know that glimpse out of the corner of your eye as you’re doing something else. My girls were getting their back to school haircuts today and I was trying to apply some make-up (least I scare every person we encounter). It was that glimpse in the mirror that left me thinking, give me skinny arms Lord. Now, I can hear my sister shake her head and tell me that is ridiculous both my sisters actually, in fact even my adopted sisters. BUT beauty is in the eye of the beholder and this morning it was my eye on me. We tend to be our worst critic.
It started back when we were at the beach a few weeks ago; my youngest daughter pointed out that the back of my arm is “jiggly.” Ouch! Geesh! Kids are brutal. Since then I’ve kept an eye on my arms. While I do workout five days a week, I have moved away from weights to more cardio but since that lovely conversation with my daughter I have begun to add some weights back into my routine… I’m not looking for muscular arms, just arms that don’t jiggle… lol
Truthfully, I am not a fan of weights, I have had my fair share of shoulder injuries one landed me in physical therapy for almost a year (so I tread lightly around weights). The only muscle I really want to work and grow would be my faith muscle. Puny faith muscles are not appealing among Christians. It’s true we all want to have big faith, pray big, pray longer, pray better, or the famous just believe, etc… sigh.
Jesus said if you have faith the size of a mustard seed then it would be effective (even through a little bit of faith God can move). I often teach faith is like a muscle you have to work it in order for it grow because we want our faith to grow and it’s a simple concept the kids can get. Faith is believing in something you can’t feel with your senses so to speak. Faith is not easy, in fact faith is hard. Christians will paint faith as being easy, “just believe” they will say which usually leaves you scratching your head thinking if it was that easy then I’d believe! In the simplest terms faith is trusting that God has your best interest at heart. Ah, that trust is difficult to build up if you don’t have a relationship with the Lord and even then, it can be trying.
I’d like to tell you that I trust the Lord immensely and never question Him but that would be a big fat lie. I am constantly giving “stuff” to the Lord and then taking it back, laying “issues” down at His feet and then quietly walking back and picking them back up. That is not very good trust but I am just keeping it real. In fact, I have to apologize to the Lord almost on a weekly basis because I keep taking back stuff I gave Him; that is a trust issue. I often pray, Lord help my unbelief!
For example: Yes, Lord my future is all Yours… then I’ll start fretting over the future… Inviting God into my mess then shutting the door so He has to stand outside of it… ah the examples could go on. Needless to say, the only muscle I want to grow would be that of my faith. Nobody wants jiggly arms, nobody wants jiggly faith. I want to grow my trust in the Lord. When we trust the Lord, we honor Him and I want my life to honor the Lord.
But I still want skinny arms!! (just not skinny faith) 😊 Good Afternoon Ladies!
ps. jiggly or giggly ? hmmm