Okay, I have fallen off of the exercise wagon in the last two weeks.  Sadly, I’ve gone from working out at least four times a week to absolutely and positively NOTHING.  No running, no gym, no classes.  Zilch. Nadda.

I’m SO MAD AT MYSELF!!!   I usually do so much better than this!

I have a million excuses I could come up with, but the down and dirty is that I just don’t feel like it.  To top it all off, I’m not really all that excited about eating healthy, either!  EEK!

Double wammy!!!

I’d better get back on track quickly or that ‘fat arm’ that I keep seeing in my pictures is going to sneak back up and bite me…uh, in the arm!

What is it about women’s arms and them looking like tree trunks after a certain age??   I think it’s another over 40 characteristic that just stinks to high heaven.  Sigh.

With my recent lack of healthy lifestyle and motivation, I have heard myself say something like this:  “I’ve been trying so hard and I just can’t seem to get it together.”

Sounds like I need to stop trying so hard and start training!!!  Duh.

My relationship with Christ could use this attitude, as well!!

What a wretched man I am!  Who will rescue me from this body of death?  Thanks be to God – through Jesus Christ our Lord!  So then, I myself in my mind am a slave to God’s law, but in the sinful nature a slave to the law of sin.  Romans 7:24-25

We seem to forget that ‘we’ have nothing to do with our salvation.  We also tend to look over the obvious conclusion that ‘we’ don’t deserve salvation either.

All the trying in the world will never get us to heaven.

Once again, the man in the mirror needs a lesson in humility and a swift kick in the pants to realize that trying puts the onus on us and training puts the gift of salvation back into the hands of our Savior, Jesus Christ…right where it’s supposed to be.

What then?  Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace?  By no means!  Don’t you know that when you offer yourselves to someone to obey him as slaves, you are slaves to the one whom you obey – whether you are slaves to sin, which leads to death, or to obedience, which leads to righteousness? Romans 6:15-16

God gave us the freedom to choose good or evil.  And since Adam, we’ve all chosen evil.  Therefore, God sent Jesus to lead us by example and to offer us the gift of salvation.

We, my friends, have nothing to do with the gift…just the choice to train with the Master.

So are you going to try harder or get to training?

Some Wisdom for Today:  Proverbs 4:1-5 – Hear, O sons, a father’s instruction, and be attentive, that you may gain insight, for I give you good precepts; do not forsake my teaching. When I was a son with my father, tender, the only one in the sight of my mother, he taught me and said to me, “Let your heart hold fast my words; keep my commandments, and live. Get wisdom; get insight; do not forget, and do not turn away from the words of my mouth. …