He who began a good work in me..........

You know what I love about Zumba class? You see all shapes and sizes, all age groups, all athletic levels, from many different backgrounds. You know, you walk in that first day because someone that goes told you how awesome it was and you wanted to experience it too. But that first day, you are scared a little… not the kind of scared you get when someone is robbing you or you’re about to jump off the high dive, it’s more like scared that you won’t be good enough, or people might judge you. You worry about what you wear AND what you look like in it too! Then you get there and the music starts and you think, OH MY GOD no one told me I actually had to move my hips! These things haven’t moved in YEARS!!! 

But you go in there and you do it anyway, and when you leave, you feel like you’ve really done something! All the sudden you want to eat salad and skinless chicken breast! Well, there’s another class tomorrow…….are you going to go?

Here’s where the challenge comes. Are you in for the long haul or just until someone convinces you to go again. Well, you could be one of those people that decided (AGAIN) that it is the first of the year and you are going to lose weight, no matter what, and it’s really going to work this time……you will wear a bikini this year……but then life hits you and two weeks in, you quit a day here, you quit a day there, and before you know it, Zumba is a thing of the past, a dream tucked away in the “incomplete goals” chest and waiting patiently there with the mothballs until once again you pull it out in January for the “New Year’s Resolution” event….

Kinda makes me think about church…you know, some of us went to church the first time because someone we knew went there, they were excited about what God was doing in their life and wanted to share it with us, so on Sunday morning, we got dressed and went. We might have been a little scared, would people accept you, or would you be good enough, would you fit in? You went in, realized that it wasn’t as scary as you thought, and you felt good when you left, but after a few weeks, maybe a month, that bed felt way to good in the morning and you skipped a day here or there, and before you knew it, you didn’t go back…..and whatever God began in you, now lays there waiting for someone to invite you again, waiting for another Christmas program or another Thanksgiving potluck to draw you back to the place that you should be.

My point in this is, in Zumba, you’re just going to be the new guy for a while, before you know it, you’ve got most (ok, some) of the steps down, and you really don’t care what you look like anymore –just keep the sweat out of my eyes!!!  You make new friends and you learn that every time you go, you get a little stronger and a little bolder, but when you quit going, you lose some of the progress you made.
I think that Zumba and church are similar in that people don’t always see the results they are looking for right away and they get lazy or discouraged and they give up (or give in to themselves you might say) and just stop going. The sad thing is that change is a process and when you don’t let the process play out, you may never see the results of your labor.

My encouragement to you is GO! GO! GO! Keep going, keep pushing, keep progressing. God is faithful to complete a good work in you! Philippians 1:6