my weight loss journey has been a long one. as is it with most people. but the one constant that keeps me focused and on track is God.
right now i’m into running and yoga. running is extremely hard for me. it’s boring and the minute it starts to get hard i want to quit. now, if ROF is reading this (and he probably is) he might think that i motivate myself by the way i scream at the top of my lungs while i do my couch to 5K running app on the treadmill. it cracks him up to hear me bellow out rap lyrics and mix in random spurts of YOU CAN DO IT and ONE MORE MINUTE! and KEEP RUNNING to myself.
it’s fun, but not my real motivator. my real motivator is saying this over and over to myself: “you are fearfully and wonderfully made.” that is what keeps me going. i am fearfully and wonderfully made. really? you mean i just don’t willy nilly exist from an evolved ape?
it’s from psalm 139 and it is one of the most comforting passages in the bible to me. here, read the NIV version for yourself:
For the director of music. Of David. A psalm.
1 You have searched me, Lord,
and you know me.
2 You know when I sit and when I rise;
you perceive my thoughts from afar.
3 You discern my going out and my lying down;
you are familiar with all my ways.
4 Before a word is on my tongue
you, Lord, know it completely.
5 You hem me in behind and before,
and you lay your hand upon me.
6 Such knowledge is too wonderful for me,
too lofty for me to attain.
7 Where can I go from your Spirit?
Where can I flee from your presence?
8 If I go up to the heavens, you are there;
if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.
9 If I rise on the wings of the dawn,
if I settle on the far side of the sea,
10 even there your hand will guide me,
your right hand will hold me fast.
11 If I say, “Surely the darkness will hide me
and the light become night around me,”
12 even the darkness will not be dark to you;
the night will shine like the day,
for darkness is as light to you.
13 For you created my inmost being;
you knit me together in my mother’s womb.
14 I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
your works are wonderful,
I know that full well.
15 My frame was not hidden from you
when I was made in the secret place,
when I was woven together in the depths of the earth.
16 Your eyes saw my unformed body;
all the days ordained for me were written in your book
before one of them came to be.
17 How precious to me are your thoughts, God!
How vast is the sum of them!
18 Were I to count them,
they would outnumber the grains of sand—
when I awake, I am still with you.
how does that knowledge motivate me? because they are words ordained by God and spoken by one bad-ass dude – David. and it isn’t about just me and what i want for me but what God wants for me. he put a lot of thought into me and i was fearfully and wonderfully made. so push on because i was made for it!
not that it matters, but bono is moved too by the psalms…
i have
this book right on my nightstand. it’s just the psalms alone with an intro by bono. i’ve had this book for a long time and it’s dog-earred and highlighted and torn. i didn’t even know that U2 based their song “40” on a psalm! here i was in my 20’s, screaming “how long” in soldier field in chicago and waving my hands in the air (probably sloshing my beer all over everyone) not knowing how much this book of the bible would influence me in my future.
“So then we had this slightly unusual piece of music and we said, ‘OK, what are we going to do with it?’ Bono said, ‘Let’s do a psalm.’ Opened up the bible and found Psalm 40. ‘This is it. Let’s do it.’ And within forty minutes we had worked out the last few elements for the tune, Bono had sung it, and we mixed it. And literally, after finishing the mix, we walked out through the door and the next band walked in.”
– The Edge, U2 By U2 2006
this is a snippet of how bono tells his story in the introduction of this book:
anyway, in addition to running, i have been loving yoga. probably because i’m just able to move now better than i used to. but it is a great way to connect with my body in a loving way, not a hurtful way like in the past…”you can’t wear clothes like that….you can’t do this….you can’t do that…i hate my body…” but it is a way to meditate on this psalm. even though yoga stems from a different belief system than Christianity, I totally can respect it’s origin and people but continue to silently meditate – while i sweep my hands in the air and take a long stretch – on the fact that i was “fearfully and wonderfully made…”
have a great day!
Tags: bono, encouragement, God, motivated, motivation, psalm 139, running, yoga
