…And she loved life so she never got old

Photo by Vladimir Soares

I saw a shorts video today on Youtube where this 89-year-old woman was running and doing what seemed to be like fartleks in her backyard. She said that she did this two to three times a day. I forgot how long she said she had been doing this (is this irony I am sensing…because this video was only one minute long) but either way she said that this was one of the reasons for why she stayed young and full of energy.

I was thinking to myself she was having fun. Even though she would be doing this 2-3 times a day it’s not even about the count of how many times a day she ran back and forth in her backyard; it was about loving what she was doing. When you’re having fun are you counting? Are you looking at a clock or timer pacing yourself or are you just being? So with that, is your age going to get in the way of you having fun?

I don’t plan on that being the case for me as I age. When you enjoy taking care of your health and your body it does not matter how old you are. Even if you have to push through pain, pain is weakness leaving the body…it’s called growing pains. There is nothing that will get in the way of you doing what you find enjoyable, even if pain is involved, and especially if age in involved.

Even though it was one minute I enjoyed watching her having fun !!! That’s what working out is supposed to be like. It’s not supposed to be some tedious chore. When you’re doing it right, it is just like being like a child or is like when children are playing without a care in the world! When we have workout buddies (something that seems non-existent to find as a woman) then we are playing with one another at sometimes what we call the “jungle” Gym or fitness center.

When we were playing like kids do in the sandbox or like how kids do on the playground it was about enjoying life and enjoying each other and nothing else. And God delights in seeing this because He is being glorified while hate or slothfulness (which is what truly leads to decay) is not being glorified and comes from when we don’t appreciate or enjoy life.

The woman in the video even said, “It’s nothing to it, but to do it. And that’s what gets a lot of people. The doing it part…even though Nike placards the slogan everywhere we can still be our own gatekeepers of living life when we are not just doing it or when we would be overdoing it… while doing nothing at all while thinking we are doing something.

So when this happens and we see an 89-year-old woman showcasing her love for life and health, people could be asking the questions, “How can she do that?”, “What does she do to be so fit at her age?…

I can see how God would be using what is considered “the weak, lame, and foolish things of the world to shame the wise_” or in this case, to shame certain health and fitness gurus who are overdoing_ their diets and working out, but would be missing this one simple component to life, health, and fitness which would be:

Love…

…and God is love and Life. With love comes appreciation, commitment, dedication, and gratefulness towards life, regardless of the circumstances or situation a person could be in, or in this case, regardless of your age…

The real question people should be asking about her is, “What is her desire?” And then they may be able to understand her answer; because when you desire life and not death your why is going to follow what you are doing. “Out of the heart, comes the abundance of life…”

When you love life, then your actions and your directions will follow, because your “why” would also be your “what” resulting in a passionate pursuit, or in this case,

your Who would be why you would be doing what you are doing…

and would be why you would be doing whatever you are doing so well.

This is what it looks like to fulfill, “Everything that you do, do it _ unto the glory of God”. It is not complicated. This is what we are designed to do and designed to enjoy_ doing and you see that when we are enjoying seeing others enjoy life. God is Life.

When God is glorified, so will your pursuits, and what you desire would never be in vain. This is because you would desire life and that is God’s desire as well: life is seen by salvation to bring people from death to life through belief in His Son, Jesus…_Who_ you guessed it…is Life.

Ironically this woman was smiling and jumping up and down like a little girl and thanking God telling the lady who was recording her, “There’s nothing to it, but to do it”…

There is so much beauty in that simple statement that she said, because in order to do the Work of God to enjoy life and to see life, we don’t do anything at all.

We believe in Jesus in order to do the Work of God or I should say, in order to do life you must believe in the One who is life. You can’t follow and appreciate what you don’t believe….

Who you don’t believe…

and unbelief leads to unanswered questions while believing in the truth is believing in solutions since the Truth is solutions and Jesus is also The Truth.

God has made this to be so because just like parents who love watching their children having fun and doing nothing at all but enjoying what we as parents have done for them, God is a Father who delights in looking at people having fun and enjoying the life He gave them, just like children who would be doing nothing at all, enjoying life.

And all because they had faith in what He has already done for us in sending His Son to die for our sins and rising from the grave so that by following His example, we kill our old ways and rise from death through Him into life to finally enjoy life as it is should be enjoyed through faith in what God defines as life and not what we thought and defined was life, but was not.

This is why Jesus said, “ You must be like children to see the kingdom of God”…

The world has us overworked, overthinking, and over-depleted, and even exploits our exhaustion. I think a lot of people are overthinking working out or overthinking what being in shape looks like, just like we do many times with overthinking life and how it should be lived.

But look at children…

Are they thinking about these things or are they just living life and enjoying it?

Let us be like children and not think just like how when we were once children and did not have a “thought” or “care” in the world because we knew and trusted our parents or those older than us, to protect us and do the thinking for us.

Let us be like children and not think for ourselves but instead trust our Father in Heaven, while He would be the One thinking for us. His ways will never lead us astray from Life…

…because He is Life. And then we could enjoy it

…enjoy Him.

Life is going to come with having appreciation for life. Valuing and taking care of yourself will follow. This is seen when Jesus (Life) says, “Focus on the Kingdom of God, and all things that you need will be given to you”. God’s Kingdom is Life, whatever you focus on is what you will also take part in.

But when you don’t believe that life is valuable then you won’t cherish it. And a person’s lifestyle will tell on them…you will know by their fruits. You don’t have to go through extremes to maintain healthy living; you gotta want it. And when you want life, you will never let Him go when you receive Him, again no matter what age you become.

That woman is 89 years old and still looks young. She is still able to move faster than a lot of people my age because too many people my age (and I’m currently 31) love death and filthy eating (both physical and spiritual) so they won’t be able to keep up with that 89-year-old.

When we hate one another and ourselves because we would have to first hate God, then that is hating life and that is exhausting. You will exhaust yourself because you would be exerting death. And in your exhaustion, everything that you would do would be too tiring to commit to, including working out or trying to be healthy and remain healthy.

I think this is also the case because people are trying to be healthy for the wrong reasons…shallow reasons…fleshly shallow reasons. Reasons like appearance and image are not what life is about. Shallow reasons come from shallow pursuits and shallow pursuits are vanity.

God does not glorify that.

So in those types of pursuits, they start and end with wasting time…

…wasting life…

Jesus is Life, and He teaches us how to be faithful and committed to Life. But when you love death and lust, that is what you’ll be committed to, and you won’t be committed to working out or living healthy because it will seem like a burden to do so. Life would seem like a burden, or at least how you would have “defined” life to be.

A burden that would be seen through decay and aging, unlike this 89-year-old woman that loved Life and so she never got old.

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