"The Long Play" (4/30/2024)

Saturday night I was sitting at my parents house, enjoying an amazing meal and great wine with all my siblings, and the spouses of those who have spouses, celebrating my Dad’s 60th Birthday. My Mom had pulled out hundreds of old photos looking back to my childhood, my parents childhoods, and beyond into our family history. If you’re not one of the people who has had the pleasure of meeting my Dad, especially in the midst of a family dinner, he tends to be on the emotional side, and enjoys sharing a good word with our family in those settings. On this particular evening, he shared his gratitude for the family he was blessed with. He shared how much it meant to sit around a dinner table with his four children and two daughters in law, and share in conversations and to be blessed that we can come together as a whole family unit without drama, anger, resentment, or so many other things that so many other families struggle with. And he shared his feelings of gratitude for a life that he felt is so undeserved, yet he was blessed with anyways (we tend to think he deserves it, but that's just the way he is).

Then on Sunday, Sierra and I took our boys to the park to enjoy some time as a family, and we were rewarded with a screaming meltdown and a bottle thrown in Sierra’s face when we said it was time to go home… 

This got me thinking about the investments we make in things that matter to us most. My family was not always like that. We didn’t always have the pleasure of enjoying one another's company. I remember yelling, fights, arguments, disagreements, and all kinds of things throughout my childhood between siblings and parents, and myself and parents, and between my parents. Don’t get me wrong, I was blessed with a great childhood and extremely loving parents, but that doesn’t mean it was always pretty and perfect. Yet, some 30 odd years later, we are able to sit around a table as a family and cherish our time together. When we look back on all those photos, we’re flooded with memories of the good times, and somehow, the times that weren’t so good, seem to fade further into the rear view as each year passes. 

Sunday was frustrating. It was an extremely hard day for Sierra and I, and sometimes it makes you think back to the times before you had kids where things were easy. And then I think about Saturday night, and the way that even through some of those hard memories, we are able to reflect on all the good times, and spend time loving one another and enjoying each other. I know because of those experiences that one day in the future, I’ll have the privilege of sitting around a dinner table with my boys, celebrating my birthday, and thinking back not to the days of tantrums and meltdowns in the park, but to the days where core memories are formed for our family, and where we grow closer and stronger because of the amazing experiences we had. 

Faith and Fitness are both extremely important for me, and I’ve learned a similar lesson in these two arenas as well.

Early on in your faith journey, you tend to have that moment of the Spirit filling you, the bible all the sudden going from gibberish to clarity, and you feel a strong sense of belonging with God. As time goes on, that “feel good” Christianity tends to fade a bit and it can begin to feel like a chore rather than something that just came to you. You go to church, you open your bible when you have time, and you pray when you feel like you need to, but the light peppy feeling you used to feel isn’t always there. These are the times when it’s most important to reflect back on who you used to be. To remember your brokenness in your past life, and consider where you are today. Even though you maybe haven’t felt that energetic, spirit lead feeling every single day over the past 1, 2, 5 or 25 years, when you think back to who you used to be, and who he has made you now, you can see the big picture, and you can rest in your relationship with God and be grateful for the blessings he’s provided you. 

Similarly with fitness, it’s so easy to have a bad run, or a bad day at the gym, and to look in the mirror and not see the level of progress you used to see when you first started, and this can be frustrating. But when you think back to that time you first started, and you remember how painful it was to push through a workout you didn’t think you could finish, and you remember how everyone around you was lifting more, running faster, and looking better, you can see yourself today, and know that even in the bad days, you made progress, and ultimately that progress is what got you here today. 

We live in a world where we want everything now, but good things don’t happen overnight. Sometimes it’s 30 years of ups and downs with your family. Financial struggles, relational struggles, the struggles of testing boundaries as a child, and whatever else life throws at you. But if you remember that this is about the long play, and not tomorrow, you can be reminded that God is making a room for you right now, and one day you’ll have the opportunity to sit around the table with your heavenly Father, and reflect on all the goodness that you experienced throughout your life, and more importantly, look forward to all the greatness that is to come in eternity.

Mathew 6:19-21

“Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust[a] destroy and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also."