Spiritual fats?!

"Therefore since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us" Hebrews 12:1 (NIV)

"Strip down, start running—and never quit! No extra spiritual fat, no parasitic sins." Hebrews 12:1b (MSG)

Dr Khoo preached on this verse last Sunday and taught how we should "throw off the weight that hinders". I got reminded of it while writing yesterday and thought how apt it is in my endeavour to lose weight. When I went to check up The Message, it says, "start running--and never quit! No extra fat". Wow. Amazingly prophetic.

So now my new exercise motto is: "Keep running, never quit, no extra fat!"

Okay, jokes aside, I wanted to talk a little about it because I was quite impacted on Sunday.

1. "Surounded by a great cloud of witnesses"

When I first read it, I thought it to mean non-believers. Jesus calls us to be the salt and light of the world, and to influence the people around us by our own exemplary action.

That of course, reminds me of the AWARE saga which portrayed less than exemplary acts by Christians. Usurping the exco positions of an association is hardly making positive impact, I feel. Oh wells, as the old axiom goes, "to err is human, to forgive divine". Now that everything is over, I just hope that people don't think that all Christians are homophobic and dogmatic crusaders. After all, Jesus taught us to love the sinner and hate the sin right?

I then realised that the great cloud of witnesses can apply to believers as well. What you do actually directly affects others in the church as we learnt in Youth Group on Sunday. Frankly speaking, I've been drifting away for a while now.. choosing to Laugh Proudly in the Pugilistic World. Hmm. Somehow it does affect how I operate at church or normally too..

2. "The sin that so easily entangles"

That can easily mean any sin. The Message calls it "parasitic sins" and Dr Khoo used the same term too. Anger, pride, striving, neglecting the welfare of our bodies.. Hmm. I would say that I am in a stage of my life right now where I'm taking care of my body. Haha.. And since nothing much is happening, I have nothing much to be angry about. Every day seems to be the same routine. I should start to think about quitting at the end of May. =/

3. "Run with perseverance the race marked out before us"

I take that to mean life. The Christian life, to be more exact. Hm. Well.. I still have a long way to go, and there are so many things that I want to do, so many places that I want to go. The thing is, often things don't go the way that I want it to go and we are often at the mercy of circumstances. To run with perseverance means to not be deterred by whatever that comes my way, but really just take it in stride.

I learnt something new at kayaking last Saturday when I was rowing on a K1. For the uninitiated, that's a single boat that is quite thin, making it quite difficult to balance. I have been rowing in the fatter Tourers for the whole of my JC, and I decided to try out K. So we were doing the triangles and I soon approached Benjamin Sheares Bridge which is a choppier part of the Kallang Basin because of the Duck Tours and the dragonboats going in and out..

The thing I learnt is, the more I stop to try to balance myself, the more unbalanced I am. In life, the choppier the sea is, often the best thing to do is really to just move forward regardless. Because the world will not stop spinning because you stopped. Only by moving forward can we overcome the difficulties that come our way. And the big waves are not so big anymore.

Philosophical eh?

Well, that's about all for today. Better get back to work. Hahas.. Ciao!