I don’t run triathalons or marathons. Nor am I a fitness freak. But as a 47-year-old preacher, I’ve become increasingly aware of my mortality and the ever-sagging effects of gravity.
It was early on in my ministry experience that I began to realize that I had better start working out or bad stuff was going to happen to me. Heart attacks, diabetes, and strokes happen to preachers, too.
It was easy for me to dismiss my out-of-shapeness in ministry because for years I was in excellent shape. In my late teens and early twenties, I was a roofer by trade. The result of 10-12 hour days of manual labor was me being slim, tan, and quasi-ripped. In college, I had 8% bodyfat and could hang with the best of them when it came to push-ups, sit-ups, and the like. But then something strange happened. I went into ministry full time.
My roofing hammer was exchanged for a commentary, my ladder for a desk, and my once rigorous manual labor job for a sedentary calling. To add injury to insult, I tore my ACL while dancing to a Michael Jackson video (don’t ask.) My injury gave me an excuse to be even less active.
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