…once you see how it came to fruition you’ll understand its’ merit.  So you’ll get the complete picture, let’s go back to that hospital bed and by the way, please don’t beat yourself up for not putting your health first, we’re only human. I was an 18 year old fighter lying in that hospital bed.  I was a tough cracker, or so I thought.

I’d won all type of kickboxing matches as a youngster and set my sights on a world championship.  As a child I began training in martial arts at the age of eight and by 13 God had pierced my heart with aspirations to be a world champion kickboxer and owning my own academy one day. My entire life had been geared from age eight to at that time 18, to be a champion.

Then like so many times in our lives, God allowed a curve ball that no one in my corner was ready for.  A career threatening injury.  A broken jaw to be exact, broken not only in one place but three.  If you’re in the fighting game as I was, that’s not a very desirable thing to have. 30 years past that now, I still don’t understand why it happened, but I do understand the ‘Who’ of why it happened.  You may be in a similar situation in your life, the lofty plans you had to lose 25 pounds and get in tip top shape are constantly side tracked by life, work, and the pursuit of…well…whatever we’re pursuing.

Or you may have started out with a bang and strained a muscle early on and now haven’t returned to the gym.  That’s why there’s the 40 Day Fitness Thru Faith Challenge. God seemed to have put a roadblock in front of my goal.

Was it because I was  on the wrong track for the previous ten years? Why would he allow my whole life to be centered around one goal and then pull the rug out from under me in such a painful way. From my experience, it’s perfectly feasible for God to test you a little and see how serious you are about your goal.  I wanted to be not only the top kickboxer in the world but to do that I had to be in the best shape possible.  Maybe I waivered a little in my training so God said to one of His angels, allow a wild, crazy hook through Kevin’s defense and see how serious he is about this goal.

He could put a little stitch in your side when you’re hiking that last mile up that hill.  He could allow that alarm clock to malfunction on your day to be at the gym at five in the morning. This is all possible.

You know as well as I do that Jesus looked at his disciples and said, “With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.” Matthew 19:26. As I brought my mind back to some sort of alertness in order to gain a mindset of where I was my Mom slipped close by my bedside, ‘You’re waking up, sweety,’ she said as she stroked my sweaty forehead.

It’s funny how moms always have the ability to state the obvious.  I looked intently at her face and grabbed her hand.  She began telling me how the surgery went well and the doctor said all three breaks should heal fine.  My mouth was wired tightly shut so I just nodded and hummed through the wires as she continued, ‘I’m gonna run home and check on your brother.’ My brother is eight years younger than I, so he was at home alone at this point.  My mom, sugared me on the forehead (In the south we say, ‘sugared’) and said good bye for now.  Once she was gone the pain meds began to kick in so I felt a little better momentarily.  My eyes were open normally and I began to take inventory of the room.

As I was examining all the tubes running in and out of my body a nun in a white robe looking outfit darkened my doorway with a soft rap of three taps at the door. She quietly approached my bedside, almost levitating over to me as an angel may do.  She placed her elderly, wrinkled hand on mine and said something I couldn’t understand.  She was speaking a language I couldn’t understand, but I gathered from her large smile and hand gestures, she wished to pray with me. I nodded in agreement and she began in this strange tongue.  She finished a pretty lengthy prayer and said, ‘Amen,’ I nodded and she smiled even bigger.  She gave me a final pat on the hand, gently and backed up a few steps holding this huge smile.

She then turned and exited the same way she came, softly and smooth. As soon as she got out of sight, I thought to myself, ‘Wow…that was odd, but I feel a certain peaceful presence about the room, even though I was beginning to get agitated with the I.V. and other tubes getting in my way.’  For some reason, only explained by God’s prompting I reached over to the table beside my bed and opened the drawer.  I remember prior to going into surgery that drawer contained a Gideon Bible, just like a hotel.

I pulled it out and sat it on my lap, draping it over tubes with fluids of all colors flowing through them. I thumbed through this book as if I was looking for something in particular, but not knowing what that could have been.  Finally,  I stopped in the book of Psalms and flipped a few more pages.  Finally finding the Psalm 91. At this point I was on a mission.  This nun coming in my room while I was in such a painful state, blaming God for all that had happened.  It occurred to me that maybe God wasn’t a sick jokester.

I’m sure you’ve read through the 91^st Psalm at some point.  Verse 2, reads, ‘I will say to the Lord, He is my refuge and my fortress, my God, in whom I trust.  Surely he will save you from the fowler’s snare and from the deadly pestilence.  He will cover you with his feathers, and under his wings you will find refuge.  It goes on to read in verse 7, ‘A thousand may fall at your side, ten thousand at your right hand, but it will not come near you,’ and verse 14, reads, ‘Because he loves me, says the Lord, I will rescue him; I will protect him, for he acknowledges my name.’

That was all I could stand at the time, I laid the Bible back on the side table and tried to rest my eyes as the pain meds had begun to subside and pain crept back into my head area.

Do you believe the Word of God?  In your eyes do you see the Bible as a living thing?  It is!  It’s the living, inerrant Word of the Living God.  It’s infallible and it’s timeless, applicable today, yesterday, and tomorrow.  The Bible inspires, motivates, plants, cultivates, as well as whatever God desires, can be accomplished by His word.  As it reads in Isaiah 55: 11; ‘so is my word that goes out from my mouth: It will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it.’

From that point on I realized God wasn’t playing a game with me, he was testing me somewhat to see if my character and determination were such that a champion could emerge.

Does that mean after this incidence it was smooth sailing?

Of course not!

Trials my friend, I had trials on this road.  Did I rejoice as James says to do all the time…I wish I could say I did, but I didn’t.

Throughout the entire process he protected me, encouraged, me, and even gave me the gift of encouragement.  Now I run a couple of martial arts schools and encourage students daily.

Being in the health and fitness industry I see the struggle people have in making the progress they’d love to achieve.  I’ve seen people be successful at losing those extra pounds and I’ve seen some on that perpetual rollercoaster.

What I’ve noticed as a common thread for those who were able to get in great shape compared to those who didn’t was three key elements:

• Placing God at the center of the plan
• A good exercise program
• What went in their body

This was how the 40 Day Fitness Thru Faith came to be.

Realizing that Scripture has the power to change lives and God wants us to be as fit as we can be I consulted with a good friend regarding this idea.  My friend just happens to own a successful restaurant as well as being an accomplished martial artist and endurance athlete in his early fifties.

Edmund is a professional consultant regarding healthy eating and prepackages healthy meals for folks wanting to control their diet.

His sentiments echoed my thoughts exactly.  People have the ability to make good progress if they have these three key elements: God at the center, a good exercise program, and what foods they consume.

I’m sure you know all about the roller coaster of fitness and weight loss.  It usually starts with the, ‘Okay, this is enough’ attitude, the next time you get on the scales or glance in the mirror.  You then make the promise to yourself,

‘Self, I have to change my ways.  I’m gonna hit the gym everyday and eat a balanced diet.’

You step off the scales, give yourself that one final determined look in the mirror and go put some clothes on for the day.  Breakfast goes well.  You eat some granola cereal and a banana with low fat milk.  You have to have that cup of coffee, but all in all b-fast is a success.  You even pack a few healthy snacks in the briefcase for the office.  You’ve heard eating smaller more frequently helps your metabolism.  So you’ve set out with all the best intentions…enough is enough.

Being 20 lbs over the weight you were when you got married is unacceptable.

You can fill in the number of pounds with whatever fires you up at this point.

So you’ve started out with a bang…eating pretty clean, hitting the gym daily as you promised yourself-but then it happens:

Your son or daughter has a recital the night you were suppose to hit the gym.  You missed your lunch time gym appointment due to a surprise meeting at the office, which didn’t faze you.

You knew tonight will work out fine, I’ll just swing by after work. BUT YOU DON’T!  Do you know what happens in your brain when you DON’T?

You subconsciously program your mind to accept DON’T as an acceptable answer to the, should I hit the gym question.  Next thing you know, you’re back sliding on the diet, because you forgot your snacks on Thursday.  As a result you were starving at lunch and they happen to have the Deluxe Double Chili Cheese Burger on sale that day and guess what?

You begin to accept that Deluxe Double Chili Cheese Burger as acceptable lunch food…why not…you deserve it. Does all that sound familiar? 

Almost like a back slidden Christian, ain’t it!  Sorry, I had to go southern on ya there to prove a point.  Just like there’s no such thing as a little sin, there’s no such thing as a little commitment.  You understand the point I’m sure.  Life get’s in the way, we become a victim of circumstance.  We allow those circumstances to dictate our behavior even though deep down inside we really don’t want that to happen.

Back to my friend Edmund and how the 40 Days Fitness thru Faith challenge came to be.  Edmund completed a marvelous athletic event recently called the 20X Challenge.  This is sponsored by SealFit, which is some really tough and rough bunch of men.

This event is ran by ex-Navy Seals and is a 12 hours workout with 11 other people while these ex-SEALS yell  and scream obscenities at you the entire time.  It’s something similar to the final training an aspiring SEAL has to accomplish at Kokoro before becoming officially a SEAL.

During this grueling 12 hour training session Edmund explained how scripture really encouraged him, during the toughest of these 12 hours, especially Philippians 4:13:

‘I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.’   He said this one scripture spurred him on to finish the course. Since he’s  known as the Caveman Chef and helped hundreds of people lose hundreds of pounds we put our heads together and God birthed the

40 Days Fitness thru Faith Challenge.

As Christians we all have a Bible, but as athletes or plain folks aspiring to improve our health, acquiring that just perfect scripture needed for inspiration during those tough workouts or those blah days is sometimes difficult to find, unless you have some sort of divine intervention by God, as I did in the hospital bed.

God tells us to seek and we shall find, but in today’s busy life sometimes our minds are so cluttered we can’t even begin to search. That’s where the 40 Days Fitness thru Faith Challenge comes in.  We are here to help!

Just like the Father allows us to come back when we’ve made those mistakes it’s as easy to get back on track with your goal of losing 20 pounds.

With God at the center and the 40 Day Fitness thru Faith Challenge you’ll be back on track in no time. If you’re already a pretty well-conditioned athlete and decide to step it up a little, maybe go for a half marathon or even a whole.

The 40 Day Fitness thru Faith Challenge will help you stay on course.  Or if you have neglected your health for a long time and God has convicted you regarding the status of your temple…IT’S OKAY!

Take one step at a time and follow your heart.  40 Day Fitness thru Faith Challenge will fuel your mind and spirit so you can fill your body with good stuff and proper exercise.