My workout sucked today. No, seriously, it was really bad. I did my normal routine, but each step on the treadmill felt laborious. Every breath I took on the elliptical machine felt like my final gasp for air. And my strength on weights felt so diminished that I couldn’t lift what I normally would. I felt like the biggest wimp. People around me were flying on their machines, lifting like animals and breathing as normal human beings. It seemed like I was in a dream where the surroundings were familiar, but where my body was foreign to me. It didn’t do what I wanted it to do. It didn’t respond how I wanted it to respond. You know those dreams where you are trying to run from something, but can’t move your legs? Yeah. It was a lot like that.
As I tried to quiet my panting breath on mile three, and feeling the likelihood that I was about to faint, I wondered what had gone wrong today? Yesterday and the day before my workouts had felt so good and invigorating…and not like I was gonna die! Like I could have gone on forever. But today was a very different day. And it irritated the crap out of me.
When I realized what the problem was, everything began to make sense. In a crazy, busy day yesterday, I hadn’t gotten a chance to eat dinner. I had gone to bed hungry but too tired to do anything about it. This morning, I rushed out the door to take Abby to work and headed straight to the gym. Didn’t drink my usual morning 8 oz. of water. STUPID!!! And my body was rebelling. Not enough food for fuel. Not enough water for hydration. And so it retaliated. If I wasn’t going to give it anything, it wasn’t going to give me anything. Seems fair, right? Irritating, but fair.
An empty tank can’t produce much. Try as we might, we can’t get blood from a turnip. Just like my horrid workout this morning, life can’t be lived fully if we aren’t pouring nutrients into it. We can fill our lives with lots of stuff and busyness that doesn’t matter, but none of it will satisfy or replenish or fuel us. Kind of like the handful of M&M’s that were my dinner last night. The M&M’s that did nothing for me. And if we have no fuel, we have nothing to offer.
No, we need the good stuff. You know, relationship stuff. With God and people. Time with God. Time with friends. Good conversations, with Jesus and with people. Times of reading what Jesus has to say to us and then taking the time to ponder and reflect on how to flesh it out. Pouring into the lives of others and letting them do the same for us. God and people. This is the stuff that keeps us fired up. This is what gives us life and breath.
I am not going to skip dinner tonight. And I might even have a power bar before I head to the gym tomorrow morning. That, and a big glass of water. And after a much better work out, I will come home and aim to do the same in the life that I have so graciously been given…
