Lenten Series3: Play the Tape to the End: The Opposite of Me

This guest bodybuilder in this video (Dorian Hamilton) is a good juxtaposition with the bodybuilder in the previous episode (Greg Long). In the previous episode Antoine asked Greg Long if he had any kids. He responded by saying no, he didn't have time. His training and drive to be the best took up all of his time and effort and he wouldn't change a thing. Yet, here we have Dorian, who is around the same age as Antoine, going after his dream and is married and I assume with aspirations of starting a family.

Bodybuilding can be a very selfish sport. First off, it is all about how you look. It has nothing to do with strength and power and how much you can lift. The numbers you lift in the gym are worthless and mean nothing when you are up on stage. And you see and hear many bodybuilders putting off having real lives so that they can achieve greatness. You hear them talking about turning in on themselves and shutting out friends and family. They'll say it's not possible to have a family and a bodybuilding career. Yet, you can see some of the most successful bodybuilders doing just that, competing and achieving great accomplishments while at the same time starting and cultivating a family. I think of bodybuilders like Evan Centopani, Lee Haney, Branch Warren, Seth Feroce, Dennis Wolf and others who started families during their bodybuilding career. There is selfishness as in you need to get in YOUR training and meals and rest, but they did not shut out the world.

In order: Evan Centopani, Lee Haney, Branch Warren, Seth Feroce, Dennis Wolf.

And, in some way we have to balance our Christian walk. Ultimately we must cultivate our relationship with Jesus, yet at the same time we must love our neighbor. This was my struggle at the beginning of Lent in choosing what to do. I had a couple ideas and I voiced them to my wife. One, being more physically challenging, my wife encouraged me to pray about. She did not see how adding this extra burden was going to help me grow. I had it worked out in my head, yet it had not baring on my focus of Lent being drawing closer to Christ and coming out of bad habits that affect my family life (staying up late, working late, not waking up at my alarm, waking up and going back to sleep leaving my wife to take care of our daughters.)

It has been a great gift to me to surround myself with and spend with with men who I look up to and admire and who are excelling in areas I also want to excel in. In our spiritual journey we do not have far to look. We are blessed with the lives of the saints to see their struggle and see how they began and how they ended. Sometimes we need to spend time with someone who is at the opposite of where we are at to see how to proceed.