I was changing out of my suit and into a t-shirt tonight and saw myself in the mirror.
What caught my eye was the size of my right bicep.
You see, I’ve been lifting weights consistently for a year now and there is some real definition there, not enough to impress anybody else, but enough for me to notice.
So before I put my shirt on I went in to the kitchen, shirt in hand, flexed my right bicep and asked my wife if she noticed anything.
She said sarcastically, “Is there a hole in the shirt?”
This all reminded of a time some thirty years ago when I was a skinny high school student working at the golf course over the summer. I’d always been self-conscious about being thin, so that summer I decided to start lifting weights.
I’d been lifting for a while and felt I wasn’t making any progress. But my relationship with the Lord had grown over that summer, and I decided that on this day instead of just feeling bad about my physique, I would take my insecurity and frustration to the Lord. So, that morning before work I prayed. I told the Lord how I felt and asked Him to help me.
Later that day I was in the bag room at the golf course cleaning golf clubs when J.D walked in. J.D. was nearly 60. A grizzly 60. He had lived a tough life. He had been ridden hard and put up wet, as they say, and not a particularly kind or empathetic person. But as he walked by me that day he said, “Hey, you been working out. You look bigger?”
It was nothing to him; just a few words. He probably didn’t even think about it. He just said it. But in his words I heard the voice of the Lord. I knew the Lord was speaking through this hardened, cynical man to encourage me. I knew it as surely as I knew anything, and I was encouraged, not so much because it made me feel better about myself, but because I knew I had heard from the creator of the universe. When that happens, everything else gets smaller.
Jesus said, “My sheep hear my voice, and I know them . . ..” John 10:27. Sometimes Jesus’ voice is a sub-audible whisper heard in prayer, and sometimes it’s the words of another spoken in passing at work. I heard Jesus’ voice because I had a relationship with Him, and I engaged Him in the conversation.
Have you heard His voice lately? GS