Jesus is my personal trainer

Over the last year I have lost 65lbs... and have about 40 more to go. I recently took up what I thought was going to be trail-walking... but I was listening to Judah Smith preach (his sermon with a strong, steady beat in the music behind him) through my earbuds and couldn't help myself... when he talks about joy and freedom... I just want to run! I have never been a runner!

(From a t-shirt I saw online.)

I've added some encouraging songs with a strong beat to my playlist as well and it occurred to me today as I was out on a trail that there is something special about pushing yourself to your physical limits and hearing God's word (or talking to Him) at the same time.

My atheist friend would call it "lack if oxygen" but I know there is more.

Your lack of ability to keep up emotional walls just opens up places for Jesus to work where you haven't been letting Him in...

I think back to when I used to watch that TV show "The Biggest Loser" and their personal trainers would push and push and push the contestants until they broke... until they were sobbing and breathless and suddenly talking about all the hurts in their past and why they eat and why they rage and why they are too depressed to move on a daily basis.

Physical exertion can break the walls you've built within yourself. Sometimes it picks at the mortar, making it crumble a tiny bit at a time... but at some point for me there was a "boom"... there was probably a visible physical jolt, if anyone had been around to see it...  

When I had pushed myself to the point where I wanted to stop and sit in the grass and sob about every stupid choice I had ever made, every wrong thing in my life and refuse to ever move again... I had these words in my ears...

(Hit "play" on the youtube video to hear the actual song... you can hear why it would be good to run to.)

"You are no match for sin. You are no match for temptation... The only hope for sexual purity in today's society is beauty and majesty of Jesus. when your eyes and your heart and your emotions get captured by the beauty and the majesty and the loveliness of Jesus it will cause you to resist temptation and look only to Him...

Bondage, addiction, temptation, secrecy, pain... It must bow and it falls back at the mention of His great name. I am convinced that the blood of Jesus is the most powerful agent in human history... and it can set you free... for whom Jesus sets free is free indeed!"

Jesus' love is the answer to your pain.
Just Jesus.
Jesus plus nothing is the answer..."

(Jesus is Bringing Sexy Back; Judah Smith)