Bo WagnerUpon reflection, it was an imminently teachable moment in an out-of-the-way place.
The out-of-the-way place was the YMCA, and the teachable moment was a happy new personal record for me.
My hobby of choice for the last few years has been power lifting. My favorite discipline is the bench press. At 46 years old, I am regularly discovering the joy of what is normally a young man's sport.
A few days ago as I write this, Ben, a great (and great big) friend from my church, and I got together to lift. I had been struggling to get past 315 pounds on bench, and he graciously consented to come push some steel with me and train me for a bit.
Once I had warmed up sufficiently, Ben asked what I wanted to try for a max. I said "320," and we loaded up the bar. Once it was loaded, he laid down under the weight, calmly lifted it off the rack and pressed it four times. Then, just as calmly, he got up and said, "now you."
I got down under the weight, a weight I had tried and failed at on five previous attempts. But on this day, I pressed it with authority. Amped up beyond belief, I racked it and let out a yell while slapping my hands together.
I did it one time. Ben did it four times. I yelled. He calmly got up and said, "Now you." The reactions were light years apart, and yet they were both utterly appropriate.
My friend was not about to get excited about bench pressing 320 pounds, for a very good reason: He has done so a great many times before. He has actually done significantly more than that, 180 pounds more than that, to be exact. For him to get excited about something well below his range of capability would be either odd, or something worse: a sign of complacency.
And that brings me to the spiritual truth that has been bouncing in my brain like a 5-pound rubber dumbbell dropped onto a concrete floor. Christians are often guilty of a complacency that is utterly unbefitting us. We could be, and do, so much more for God, but have settled into being happy over being far less than God desires us to be.
A few moments ago in my personal Bible reading time I came across Colossians 3:23. It says, "And whatsoever ye do, do it heartily, as to the Lord, and not unto men." Our lives, especially the things we do for God, should be marked by "hearty" doing rather than by "half-hearted" doing. We should forever be pushing and stretching and straining to do great things for God.
Many years ago, I became acquainted with a fellow that seemed to be so ideal and so godly. But after a while I realized that what he really was is something more like "lazy." He would say pious-sounding things like, "Just let God do it." But as I read my Bible I found that Paul in 1 Corinthians 15:10 said, "I laboured more abundantly than they all."
In the parable of the talents found in Matthew Chapter 25, it was not the man who buried the money and sat on his haunches that received praise of the Lord; it was those who actively worked to increase what they had been entrusted by the master that earned his praise.
I can be more. You can be more. We can be more. Not for our own enrichment or our own glory, but for God's glory and for the good of the lost world that he came to seek and save. Not by our strength alone, but by the grace of God in us. Win more souls, read more Bible, spend more time in prayer, be more faithful to the work of the Lord, send more missionaries, fill the church pews.
The old hymn said it perfectly: "Only one life, so soon will pass, only what's done for Christ will last." Never give in to Christian complacency. It should never be our goal to arrive safely in heaven transported on angel wings. We should not be satisfied unless we arrive covered in sweat, pushing a beat-up wheelbarrow with a flat tire loaded with crowns to cast at his feet.
Bo Wagner is pastor of the Cornerstone Baptist Church of Mooresboro, N.C., and the author of several books available at www.wordofhismouth.com. Contact him at 2knowhim@cbc-web.org.