Life Muscles

Meet Zydrunas Savickas A.K.A. Big Z. Big Z is from Lithuania and he is one of the strongest men in the world. At the age of 17 Big Z took part in his first strongman contest and decided to commit himself to strength athletics. Now he can squat over 880 pounds and he has won the strong man competition several years in a row.

Where am I going with this? I want you to picture your life as my friend Big Z. Granted not everybody wants to be obnoxiously huge and ripped but bear with me for the sake of the message I am trying to get across. Big Z represents your potential, and you can grow to become him starting right now.

I know you have heard the analogy a hundred million times, but listen to it just once more. You must go through training to reach your full potential. Big Z devoted his life to becoming stronger and he did. So how do we apply the training to our own lives? Well I think the first step we can take is to recognize how we can grow, how we want to grow, and more importantly, how we should grow.

Big Z Identified that he wanted to get stronger before he did strength training. If he would have just started training and decided to run ten miles a day then he wouldn’t have gotten stronger. Big Z had to determine who he wanted to be and the type of training it took to get there as well as the things that wouldn't help him get there. That should be obvious right?  Well I am afraid it isn’t so obvious for us in the area of life. In fact it is becoming a rare thing to find someone whose lifestyle matches who they want to become down the road. And like with any training, you are becoming more prepared or adept for something. If Big Z did run 10 miles everyday he would be training himself into an excellent distance runner but not a strength athlete. Does your lifestyle match up with who you want to become? Do realize everything you are doing right now is creating you into something whether you know it or not?

Lets say for instance that someday I want to be a faithful husband or wife with happy kids that look up to me and respect me. If I was sleeping around, going in and out of relationships impulsively, cheating on people, looking at pornography, or consuming people because of what they can give me then I would be sorely mistaken to think I was prepared to be that faithful husband or wife. Is it possible to change, yes. Don't count on being the exception though especially if you know better right now and still are choosing the wrong path. As Ron Kopicko would say "you are the fathers and mothers of your children RIGHT NOW". Becoming better at those things means making decisions right now to grow into that person. We can't do one thing now and expect differently down the road.  We are ALWAYS becoming something but are you becoming who you want to be?

 

Another thing about identifying who you want to be is that you cannot make this decision based on a person, a job, or other circumstance. Instead of saying, “I will do what it takes to become a good future spouse of my girlfriend or boyfriend” you have to say “I will do what it takes to become a good spouse.” If you build your life around a job, financial situation, or person, then it will likely collapse. Who you are must stay the same wherever you are.

So now that you have identified who you want to become you have to identify what kind of “training” it takes to get there. I want to be a man who authentically pursues and represents Christ. To do that I can get in the word daily, memorize scripture, etc. Those are all great but I don’t think I really need to tell you them because you get told them everyday. If you aren’t doing a devotional and you are expecting to grow then you will be disappointed.

The real training comes when we stretch our everyday life muscles. This is where it gets fun. This simply means get out there and do things.  Do something you have never done before, pick up an instrument, go serve at a homeless shelter, make friends with someone you usually wouldn’t, play pick up games, go to a third world country for more than a week, go skydiving, just do it all! These things grow you and stretch us, especially when we do this in ministry. When we go outside our comfort zone we will grow, guaranteed.

So to summarize it all; Be like Big Z. Figure out who you want to be, figure out what you are doing that doesn’t align with that, figure out what disciplines you can do to grow you in that direction, and stretch your “muscles” by stepping outside of your comfort zone every single day.

When asked if he would do anything differently Big Z responded "No, because I got first place."