Iron (wo)Man

I have been hitting the gym pretty faithfully lately. A little more faithfully than even my quiet time, unfortunately. Usually, I am there in the late morning or early afternoon, and there is a certain. . .shall we say type? of person that I frequently see. I've made comments on my facebook, as I trudge along the endless path of the treadmill...about the people working out in jeans. The older people, doing leg flexes with their toes on machines that the buffer (i.e. not ME) people lift the equivalent of small houses on. The couple in the matching t-shirts, she in a long denim skirt and he (again) in jeans. Anyway, my point is that, while I exercise next to these people, and wait my turn on various machines along with them, they do not pose much of a threat to me. That self-consciousness that can come with appearing in public for the sole purpose of jiggling your jiggles and enduring a lot of unappealing sweat...it is not as severe during these workouts. Today, I could not make it to the gym until later, right before 5. . . muscle rush hour. Now, that self-consciousness that I was talking about, that is not going to stop me from doing my routine of cardio plus weight training. OK, to be honest, it will stop me from doing the dreaded sit-ups on the 1/2 exercise ball in between ALL the machines...but just that. So, today, I got on the elliptical-like machine (that's not an elliptical) next to a guy with a need for speed, who was next to a girl who was running from every Twinkie in the world on a treadmill. The gym was filled with this whole different vibe. People who were already in shape. Working out. To be in better shape? To avoid rush hour traffic? For FUN?!?? And I noticed, I worked a little harder, faster, and challenged myself a little more, in the midst of all the....fitness.
It made me think of my spiritual fitness. This has been a conversation among some good friends lately. I took great pleasure (I must confess) in calling one of my most physically fit friends a spiritual fatty. At the same time, there was some real accountability going on there. She has stepped up her walk with God a few notches. I have definitely been challenged by some good friends lately, and in the past have stepped up my walk because of all of the spiritual fitness around me. It sure beats hanging out on the spiritual couch, munching on spiritual junk food...being so out of shape I can't make it through a prayer without losing my breath or focus. And I don't know what the spiritual equivalent of sit-ups on a 1/2 exercise ball would be...but I'm guessing it is similar to my life the past few months.