The Process of Becoming
The Humanics philosophy of my graduate alma mater is Body, Mind, and Spirit. In their words, “The Humanics philosophy calls for the education of the whole person – in body, mind, and spirit – for leadership in service to humanity.” Springfield College drills the importance of striving for excellence, experiential learning, and growth in each of the three areas until students want to vomit their body, mind, and spirit onto the sidewalk to class. However, the more you think about it the more accurate their simple philosophy becomes, that these three areas of life are completely connected and dependent on each other for total health, functionality, and well-being.
BODY
I enjoy exercising, a lot! In middle and high school I could be found on the soccer field or any softball field from school, rec, or church leagues. In college I participated in every type of intramural sports team from ultimate frisbee, flag football, to everything in between. From my years of playing contact sports, and yes, I am considering public school soccer most definitely a contact sport, I have acquired a plethora of injuries, tears, sprains, and (one) broken bone. As I am becoming older and wiser, I realize that my body is not invincible and I do not recover as easily as I once did. Consequently, I adapted my leisure interests to activities like cycling, swimming, and P90X: ab ripper. These are now my workouts of choice, are less straining on my body, and are extremely fun… when I achieve the “love it” portion of the workout which usually arrives at the end. However, if I don’t make a conscious effort to continually workout my body, then I quickly loose muscle, endurance, and all of my personal fitness goals become farther and farther to attain.
MIND
In the words of a friend with experience in transformational leadership and the process of character and physical refinement, he reminded me of the simple fact that physical health and transformation always begins with the mind: conscious effort and choices. Will I make the choice to work out today even though I may not feel like it or want to? Will I continue to make healthy food choices that will obviously effect me physically? Will I choose to quit half way through my workout or only push myself remotely close to the boundaries of my comfort level? The Bible says to renew your mind daily (Rom. 12:18).
SPIRIT
Going right along with the physical work out analogy, God tells us in His word to “continue to work out your salvation,” (Phil. 2:12). If I want to stay in shape and maintain physical health, how far do you think I would get if I only worked out every Sunday morning and read a book about personal health and fitness maybe a few times a week? Yeah, you get my point. Working out our salvation isn’t so that we can better solidify our placement in Heaven or to achieve more of God’s love because neither of those are possible; those solely rely on faith and belief in Christ. Not heaven, but the Kingdom, the presence of God is here and now. If our personal best and highest goal is heaven and we stop at believing in Christ, we have missed the most crucial part of our faith. I believe the best part of our faith is simply about God, being God regardless of what He does for or can offer us, and being as near to Him and His glory as possible, now. I think that God calls us work out our salvation, to make small goals to daily renew our minds, give Him more control to rid us of selfish, prideful, and sinful impurities because they prevent His presence from drawing intimately closer to us. We are His bride, and like any relationship, intimacy doesn’t begin or end in “I do.” It is work. And in my opinion, working out my salvation is my most favorite type of work out, and I don’t hate it at all, I love it.
The Process: Goals
I understand that if I am not making a conscious effort to overcome the enemy and allow Christ to refine me into Him, then like my physical body, I will inevitably be choosing, by no effort at all, to wade into lukewarm, mundane Christianity and the fullness of my salvation will begin to atrophy. The process of becoming is not easy and requires a lot of work. The process challenges you to question whether or not you have what it takes or if, in fact, you are willing to risk giving up everything that is required of you. In the following I inserted (my Christianity application) along with the words of author and athlete James Clear:
All too often, we think our goals are all about the result (Heaven). We see success as an event that can be achieved and completed (being a Christian).
But if you look at the people who are consistently achieving their goals, you start to realize that it’s not the events or the results that make them different. It’s their commitment to the process.
They fall in love with the daily practice (renewal of their minds), not the individual event.
You have to fall in love with building the identity (Christ in you) of someone who does the work, rather than merely dreaming (or praying) about the results that you want.
In other words…
If you want to become significantly better at anything (at working out your salvation), you have to fall in love with the process of doing it.
(Christianity translation… you have to fall in love with the process of becoming less like you for the process of becoming more like Christ in you.)
My goals are to choose to work at becoming the person God has called me to be, to become the person the person I am looking for is looking for, to work out and walk into a closer union with Him so that I become merely a reflection of Christ’s glory.
Who are you choosing to become?
And what have you worked out today?
