CrossFit and Faith

When I started CrossFit in the empty concrete shell we now call CrossFit Mammoth  I was astonished to discover that there were no mirrors on any of the walls, not even in the bathrooms. I saw no makeup, no ego's, and a community full of love! Months down the line, it all started to change and the sport I once fell in love with started to appear just like another egotistical money making movement.

I thought about this, and came to a couple of ideas. Of all the people I have spoken to, a crossFit box has either experienced a great hurt, is going to experience a great hurt (without intentionally seeking grace and healing) or is in the process of going through some hurt. Pain, hurt, call it what you want, we all know its real.

Myself and Francois competing this weekend

This weekend I had the privilege of attending a great competition at the Silver Star Casino hosted by CrossFit BST and what an event it was, however it didn't start all that well. The registration arrived and the competition looked lean and mean and like absolute machines. Immediately the comparison monster showed its head in my mind. I was looking left and right to see where I measured up, who I was better than and who I was lacking behind. My spirit dropped, my head dropped, my nerves increased and I felt a little unworthy. I had an opportunity to walk back to the car to fetch some things and just paused to pray. "God please fill me with you, may your mercy and grace just fill me, may it always be more than enough, may you over flow in me."

I sat and listened to some music and felt the whisper louder than any thought could imagine.
"You are my creation, made perfect, washed clean, so worthy, so brave, so strong, so amazing..."
The concert the night before, Bethal Music, had been a blessed experience and one song came into my mind and it went a little something like this, "Your love, never fails, it never gives up, it never runs out on me..."

Suddenly I felt that this place of comparison was a hospital for the broken, not a flexing of fitness for the strong. Event the best in the sport were struggling with divorce, unworthiness, lust, and many other things they didn't want to be wrestling with.
In Romans 7, Paul desperately seeks to understand his heart, "I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do." Romans 7:15 
He hates what he does, yet still does it. All of a sudden I felt in that position, I wanted to be at peace, enjoy the competition, be friendly and be a light to anybody seeking grace and forgiveness and healing yet I was falling into the trap of comparing myself. 

Perhaps your reading this, perhaps you sick of not being good enough! Perhaps you are tired of anger and comparison and a life that seems to hard to bear...I have a small testimony I would love for you to read. 

"You're not shrugging," I heard a voice after my snatch in the warm up arena.
It was minutes before my second workout with my team on day two. A snatch ladder consisting of a one rep max snatch. 
I had two options, embarrassment, that my technique was lacking, or humility to put "Keegan" a side and try learn. 
I dropped the bar and walked over to a large guy sitting in the corner stretching for his own workout. I hunched forward trying to speak to him over the speakers pumping music for the heat that was in the arena.
"Say again," I tried to look serious but was so happy to be able to learn a new thing
"You need to extend your arms and shrug and then pull, don't start pulling to early, finish your pull." 
It made perfect sense. I thanked him and asked if he would watch me again. I focussed and tried again focusing this time, letting the weight fly above my head before punching it into a lock position as I dropped into a squat position. Full rep, comfortable, happy! 
I walked over again and we started chatting about my snatches first, then about my shirt "CrossFit Mammoth" and then about his own box he used to own. I fed off every word trying to take tips and advise in running a business and where to find resources and was just so grateful for him. 

Rewind to a moment: Take offense and ignore advise vs take yourself less seriously, learn a thing or two. What an honor! 

I stepped out into the arena and competed hard and at the end landing a rep 5kgs lower than my personal best I had only snatched 3 times in my life. I walked out sweating, shoulders on fire but content. Fortunately I managed to get round to the next heat to watch my new friend attempting his last snatch at 110kg! Just before he stepped to the bar, he raised both his fingers in acknowledgment to the heavens then executed the perfect snatch. I had goosebumps! 
Here was a man learning to Give God the glory for everything. 
Afterwards I spoke to him about it and he confirmed his faith and stance on Jesus. 
"Praise Jesus for you man!" I was literally fighting back tears, his life, attitude and passion was the fruit of his faith and it was making a difference in the world. 

I then read a piece again I had written the night before at the Bethal Music praise and worship evening about myself and how God revealed to me, what this life is really about: 

"Yes Lord?"
"Get on your knees, feel the earth underneath you,"
He sunk in awe as the magnificence of his God hovered and twisted and danced and dived in the everything, in the presence and in the nothingness between...the spirit was moving.
"pick up the dirt..." he heard the whisper louder than the voices, gentler than the breeze.

The earth slid between his fingers still wet from his tears. He rubbed it feeling it, there was a part of it he felt one with.
"a day will come, you will return to this dirt, as significant as the delicate cycle that started it, dead, yet so alive..."
His hands trembled dropping the remaining grains of earth onto his lap.
In a moment it was real, he knew life and all he knew about it would pass away, become nothing and one thing would remain...Jesus, the Father, the Holy Spirit, the uncreated one. He knew that every trick in these times would be used to distract him and his friends from that thought and draw them to things that would in centuries have no value. He knew in that moment, only the eternal story would be told.

One thing remains...one thing...his Love.

Some day, we die, our bodies return to the earth, we will be but empty shells. it is remarkable how people think that flesh that grows, hearts that beat and minds that think make us different to an animal or for that sake a plant...all creation big or small gives glory to God, every process every life cycle bows to a creator! One thing is different we have a soul, we have free will, a choice to glorify God through our existence...that choice makes us the crown of creation. The fearfully, knit together creatures in our mothers womb, and as God brought us into this world he loved us and the ball was in our court...what would we do with this gift of life. 

We can write everlasting stories on the pages of our life, ones that can only be read through the fruit of our lives. Jesus gives us life and we get to carry it, it is light, its by no means heavy...if it is, perhaps you are carrying things that you weren't meant to. 

Lets stop looking oft and right for affirmation and acceptance but rather to God, let us rather look left and right to reflect his life, like my friend Andre, whose testimony of who he was, was shown in one moment in time, the smallest of gestures, raising his fingers to the sky to say "Jesus its only you, for your glory!" 

I want to finish with this quote: "That mountain that you are carrying, you were only supposed to climb" 

Lets leave those burdens at the cross once and for all 

My friend Andre snatching 110kg perfectly!