Willing Heart

The last few months for me have been good, hard, and refining in my life. There are some things I’ve realized that are so important to our relationship with God, our relationship with others, and our relationship with ourselves. 

In the last two weeks I’ve started working out. Six years ago, after my last collegiate soccer game, I was so sad. For a few years after, I tried crossfit, long-distance running, and also not working out. Since moving to Africa, I maybe have run a few times here or there, but honestly hadn’t done much. Because I was an athlete for 18 years of my life, I realized that part of me was missing so I made the decision to try to start working out again. 

So the first few mornings, with a lot of motivation (and pre-workout), I started doing workouts. It felt good to be active again, and it was an important part for me to be healthy mind, body, and soul. But, by the third morning I was sore, tired, and I just didn’t feel like working out. I’ve been through this a lot of times, but I remembered in college when we would have 6am lifting (shoutout to Ramey) when it was snowing and my roommates and I needed to walk to the gym. We still got up. We still did it. So I channeled college Julia and I got up and worked out.  

After that third workout was done, I started to think. I hold myself back a lot, whether it’s working out, my prayer life,  or my life in general, I tend to sometimes get lazy and hold myself back. It was the same thing that morning but I made the choice to get up and work out. 

Honestly, most of life is just being willing to show up and God takes care of the rest. 

And that’s what I realized the last few weeks by making the choice to workout in the mornings. I physically feel better just by making a choice to get out of bed. Life is like that. We have the choice daily to do a lot of things. If I surveyed most people right now, there are things lacking in parts of their life because of lack of just showing up. 

If we are willing to just show up, God will not let us down.  

It’s that way when we need to show up to our jobs and do the work that is put before us. It’s that way when we show up to love someone that in our mind, doesn’t deserve to be loved. It’s that way when we’ve had a disagreement with someone, and we choose anyway to show up. It’s that way with your friends, family, and anyone. We need to just show up and God will use us.

When we show up, we become willing and God uses a willing heart (Psalm 51:12).  God will handle every singe thing in life: mind, body, and soul. All we need to do is choose in the morning if we are going to show up or if we are going to hide. When God asks us to have a willing heart, He doesn’t want us to have everything figured out, He just wants us to say to Him, “God I know I’m not perfect, but use me.” 

I’ve been reminded in these last few weeks that God will not fail us. God just wants us to be willing to be used and He will do the rest. When we show up for others, we are a direct reflection of the Kingdom because God always shows up for us. 

“Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever.” Hebrews 13:8

It does not matter what we go through, it does not matter our circumstance, it doesn’t matter how hard life is, all that matters is that we choose day in and day out to be used by God. It matters that we choose to have a willing heart and that we show up again and again because Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever. 

 

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