"Rules of The Suffer Club" (4/22/2024)

• The only thing that makes you weak is thinking you’re too weak for the thing. 

• If you work harder today than yesterday, you’ll be stronger tomorrow than today. 

• Don’t die without introducing someone to Jesus. 
  

The greatest source of suffering in our modern (American) world today, in my opinion, is a lack of understanding of your purpose. What are you supposed to do? Have you ever asked yourself that? Maybe a couple times a year? Maybe a couple times a day? I have (I do, constantly). 

Jesus suffered, no doubt, but there’s a part of me that’s also jealous. Jealous because Jesus had a clear cut plan, he knew exactly why he was here, what he needed to do, he had all the answers to the final exam, and when he nailed it, not only did he get the A+, he also delivered all of us (believers) of our sin for eternity and gave us eternal companionship with God in heaven. Man, imagine having that story written in stone before you ever even stepped foot out of your mothers womb. While I could never live up to what he did, the idea of knowing the ending from the start is kind of appealing.

And here I am… Some days when I share The Suffer Club, it’s about pushing harder, overcoming challenges, getting closer to God, and how hard work pays off. Then there are weeks like this week, where I have this amazing opportunity to be on ‘paternity leave’, away from my job, enjoying time with my family, and oh yea, dwelling on the underlying dread of returning to a job that quite honestly, is not why I was put here. And I apologize if that sounds like a complaint, because I know there are people out there scraping by, looking for a job, recently laid off, and the list goes on, but right now, for me,  it feels like  a means to an end, it’s not what God put me here to do. 

We continually ask the question, why am I here?, and to that, I’m not sure of the answer. But I know why I’m not here, and I bet many of you have answered the question, “what isn’t my purpose”, plenty of times in your life. 

Go back to the beginning of this post and read those three guiding principles of The Suffer Club, and think for a moment, could you relate to those? I’ve been thinking a lot this past week about purpose, why do we exist, why do I exist, and most importantly, HOW do I translate that into my impact on the world. So I wrote down the reasons why The Suffer Club exists. 

I believe first that the only thing that makes you weak, is believing you’re too weak for the thing. This whole idea came to me at my lowest point, completely out of shape, weak, and overweight, accepting that I needed change, and in humility joining a gym where I knew the workouts we’re going to crush me, and 90% of the people there were going to be stronger, faster, better looking and more successful at what we were doing than I. Too often we sit around knowing there’s more, knowing it could get better, but not wanting to take the step, because we’re down here, and others, who mind you have been working hard for a long time, are way up there, and we don’t like that. I write about fitness. I put out the image of someone who is fast, strong, fit, whatever you want to call it, but at the end of the day, every time I go to the gym, someone is stronger than I am. I signed up for a marathon in May, and I won’t even touch the top competitors in my age group. But I’m going to show up. I believe it’s all relative. Your hard work is not mine, and mine is not yours, only you know how hard you’re pushing your limits, and if you’re truly giving it everything you have. When I graduated college, I thought I was too broken for God to save me. I’d need to clean up my act, change my behavior, and be a better person before I let him in. What I learned was I really was just too weak to accept his strength, I believed I needed to get strong, before I could let him make me strong. You can accept Christ today, no changes, no improvements, no being better. You just have to be strong enough to accept that without him you’re weak, and he’ll make you stronger than you’ve ever been. 

If you work harder today than yesterday, you’ll be stronger tomorrow than today, is pretty straight forward, though don’t for one second think that this just applies to lifting weights. It applies to the way you live, every day, in everything you do. Work is important, and if you try harder today than you did yesterday, then tomorrow you’ll be rewarded greater than you were today. In exercise and fitness, it’s called progressive overload, and it’s the foundation of good training. Pick an exercise, let’s say bench press, and today you can do 6 reps of 155 pounds. Bench 155 until you can do 12 reps, then increase the weight, each time you lift pushing for one more rep, until you see growth and improvement, and next month, because the work you did today, you’ll be pushing 6 reps of 165. More important than all of it though, pray a little harder today than you did yesterday, listen a little harder, meditate a little harder, trust a little harder, and tomorrow, your soul will be a little stronger than it was today. You’ll endure greater hardship, you’ll find greater joy in lesser things, and you’ll see a clearer picture of what he has in store. 

Last, don’t die without introducing someone to Jesus. This one’s actually the easiest one on the list, and yet most of us fail at it miserably. You might not know what a life with Jesus looks like, and so if you’re reading this and you’re curious, please send me a note, I’d love to talk. As I tried to make clear with the first two values, you don’t have to quit drinking, swearing, cheating, gambling, watching porn, doing drugs, ‘having fun’ or any of the thousand things you can think of that you think “Christians don’t do” to know Jesus. You just have to have an open heart and open ears. If you’re a believer and you’re not telling the world about Jesus, let me remind you of one of my favorite verses, Mathew 28: 18-20: “And Jesus came and said to them, ‘All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age’”.  Your purpose is not to sell software, it’s not to build homes, it’s not to manage a team of people, it’s not to be a mom, or a dad, or a grandparent, or a coach, or a teacher, it’s simply this: to go forth and make disciples, and everything else in life is just a platform to do so. 

I guess that actually answers the dilemma presented in this post, what’s my purpose? I’m not struggling to find purpose, I'm struggling to understand my platform, and I think a lot of you are too. 

Here’s the most important thing to remember: Don’t think you’re too weak to try and figure it out, because if you work harder today to find your platform than you did yesterday, then tomorrow, you’ll be that much closer to achieving your purpose of introducing someone to Jesus, than you were today. 

Some of you reading this are stronger in your faith, stronger in the gym, and stronger in your understanding of your purpose and platform than I am, and I’m okay with that. If you’re reading this thinking you wish YOU could be stronger in those things, it’s all about perspective, your biggest competitor is you, yesterday. Get out there, pray harder, lift heavier, run faster, and remember your purpose, he’ll build your platform when he’s ready.