Leaving Virtual Life at 400-Plus Pounds; Living the Life Jesus Promised
This summer, my family vacationed in Southern Utah and I'm reminded about the virtual life I used to live and the real life I now live.
What a splendid week it was! We spent time in the same area that my family had vacationed back in the late 1970's. Over the last 35 years, I have returned there probably 20 times. I first visited Duck Creek as a teen, and now returned at the age of 52 with my wife, three adult children, and Adam's wife, Sherrell. I expect we will continue to return to experience the beauty and history of this area; my hope and desire is that I get the opportunity to teach my grandchildren how to fish in that area and lead them on the same trails I first walked with my own mom and dad.
There is one part of this experience that was amazing – out of all the times I've taken my family, my experience last week was more like my first visit in 1977. I was able to carry my own chair down the trail to the lake. I could bend down and fill my own water bobber from the lake and didn't have to ask one of my sons to fill it for me. I also was able to put any fish I caught on a stringer without having to ask someone else for help! While in Utah we also experienced an awesome performance of Henry IV Part One at the Utah Shakespeare Festival and this year, unlike the years prior to Biggest Loser, I was able to sit in a regular seat instead of the handicapped seating due to my size. What I am telling you is that for me…
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I LIVE again.
My life at 400+ pounds was … existence.
As I came home from the Biggest Loser Ranch I very quickly realized that I was alive again. During this time right after the show there were a few scripture passages that I read weekly and this one took on new meaning for me:
A thief is only there to steal and kill and destroy. I came so they can have real and eternal life, more and better life than they ever dreamed of.
John 10:10 (The Message)
I began to realize that evil had been out to steal, kill and destroy my life and had almost succeeded in doing so. I was not living the life that Jesus had promised.
I used to sit through life in front of screens: television screens, computer screens, and movie screens. Like most others in our society, I existed in a chair parked in front of one of my screens. What did I do? What do many of us do? We watch other people live life. We watch other people play sports. We watch other people experience life. We watch other people experience adventure. Sadly, in my state of health at that time I did not even realize how my eyes had become clouded to reality, and I was content to just live my life virtually.
On my season of Biggest Loser, we traveled to New Zealand. Our experiences in Auckland and Queenstown were all about experiencing extreme, almost dare-devil experiences that we would have never considered prior to Biggest Loser. One of those activities was zip lining.
While in Queenstown, New Zealand, I had the opportunity to zip line with Jillian Michaels and Olivia Ward. We zip lined on the steepest lines in the world, hanging from a wire and going from tree to tree - at one point traveling 85 miles an hour from one to another! I have a confession to make - I used to play a computer game where I, as the hero in the game, would zip line in and kill the bad guys. Believe me, there is no comparison to zip lining in a computer game and real life zip lining!
In my obesity I had settled for an existence rather than life. I had forgotten what the life was that Jesus had offered to me. In my state of constant exhaustion I had deceived myself that the scriptures applied only to my spiritual being, and that it did not have anything to do with my physical being. I was not living the full life promised to me in John 10.
There is no comparison between the virtual life I used to live and the real life I now live. The full life Jesus promised beats the virtual life that so many of us have settled for. This is the purpose for my ministries' Faith & Fitness Retreats and for our 60 Day Challenges — our goal is to reintroduce people to real life.
Our lives can be the greatest adventure we could ever hope for, but we have to begin to live and not just watch others live.
Real life beats virtual life every single time! Join me in living large …it starts with the first step and continues one step at a time.
