The Madness of Hope

How Big Are Your Legs?

This post is written by a girl who was born with monster legs:
Even at my smallest weight, my legs remained a good size. A family joke, one my brother in law will never live down, is when he looked at me one day in all seriousness said, “Shanda, you’d think for as much running as you do that you would have smaller legs!” I was a marathoner at the time and weighed one hundred and ten pounds!
When I go to the gym, I work my upper body but leg work is my favorite. It comes easy!
So I get it that most men concentrate on their upper bodies and build big biceps, chest and back muscles. Yet, sometimes I look at their calves and wonder why they don’t try to build up the muscles there. It looks out of proportion to have this great upper body and have scrawny legs!
It’s much easier to build up the bigger muscles and ignore the ones harder to deal with. This can apply to our spiritual lives as well. Some things come easy and we work to perfect them, whether it is service, bible study, prayer, or a certain sin. Then, there are those deep heart areas, or the habitual sins that are so hard to let go.
Yet, James 1:15 says, “When desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, brings forth death.” When we ignore the ‘small’, the seemingly unnoticeable things or the difficult areas in our lives, we are allowing sin to grow. This can be anything: a weak prayer life, gossip, bitterness, or a bad habit.
We are in training as Christians and are called to live lives of discipline. Hebrews 12:11 says that discipline can seem painful at times but ‘afterwards, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it.’
So, I’m asking God to show me where my ‘calf’ muscles are today. What are the areas that I need to work on in my life that I tend to neglect? If I concentrate on these areas I will grow stronger and become more like Christ.
‘Therefore, strengthen feeble arms and weak knees’ (Hebrews 12:12).
Right now I am heading off to the gym. Lucky for me, it’s my day to work legs!!! Any of you men with scrawny legs care to join me??

Linked with Joan at Grace Cafe, God Bumps and Incidences, Faith Filled Friday, and Gail at Bible Love Notes