Introduction Series Part 1 - My Testimony

I’ve been a sports guy my entire life. Just ask my parents; I was running around with some kind of ball basically straight out of the womb. I played mostly basketball and football through high school, which then switched to intramurals and aspirations of competitive weightlifting in college. I’ll sacrifice a lot of things to watch the Pittsburgh Steelers or Miami Heat on TV. Heck, throw on a Division III Men’s Lacrosse game on TV, within seconds I’ll pick a side to cheer for and I’m fully and completely sucked in.

When I moved to North Carolina in 2019, I used my passion for sports as a means of connecting with others, and I was excited when I found other like-minded men. One of these men happened to be the worship pastor at the church I had begun attending. He preached one Sunday about worship: why we should worship God, how we should worship God, etc. He said many things that convicted my heart, but nothing stung like when he said this (this is not an exact quote, but it went something like this):

“Some of you get more excited to watch grown men throw a ball around on TV than you are to worship your Father.”

Well, dang. He wasn’t actually speaking directly to me, but in that moment, it sure felt like he was. My first love was sports. I was a sports guy. That was my identity. 

Nothing stirred my heart and my emotions like a good competitive game. I could be all smiles for days after my team won, or be stuck in a terrible mood when my team loses. But spending time with the Lord was mood-neutral for me. God did not stir my heart.

I’m not perfect, and I never will be. But from that moment, I’ve been striving to become a “God guy” first. To make God my first love. To feel my heart stirring when I’m in His presence. Then after that, I’m a sports guy, and all the other things that I love doing. 

Maybe you’re someone that relates to this struggle. Let it be an encouragement that God transforms hearts on a daily basis. As you’ll see in a moment, He did it for me, so He absolutely can do it for you. And so my testimony begins… 

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I’ve grown up in the church my whole life. For my entire childhood, I attended a traditional Methodist church in Virginia. My parents were Christians as well, so I’ve never been a stranger to reading my Bible or saying my prayers. I’m also no stranger to being active in the church community either; from a young age, I was contributing to our church through music, the greeter team, VBS, mission trips, and many other things. 

After being homeschooled through 5th grade, I began attending a private Christian school in middle school. Not only was my education prestigious, but my friendships became a cornerstone to my life as I grew and matured. I began dating a blond-headed, blue-eyed, bright-smiling girl in my class during my junior year of high school, and a little over 3 years later, at the ripe old age of 19, Joanna and I got married and moved to North Carolina.

Throughout this entire time, I attended church every Sunday, I learned about God every day at school, I prayed before every meal and basketball game. If anyone ever asked, I would always say that I was a Christian. But when I look back on this time in my life, I learn a very important lesson: there’s a huge difference between association and relationship.

In the workplace, we often call our coworkers our “associates.” This implies that these are people that we work with, but that's about as deep as the connection goes. You frequently see them, but you don’t pursue anything deeper than business casual. Emotionally, you’re pretty lukewarm to associates. You don’t feel sick to your stomach when you’re apart from them for a week, and you don’t burst into happy tears when you walk into work every day. 

But when you’re in a relationship with someone, your emotions are no longer lukewarm. When Joanna is out of town for a week, there’s a quite large Joanna-sized hole in my heart. When she does something nice for me, the butterflies start to flutter in my stomach. There enters a whole new level of attraction, desire, commitment, servitude, self-denial, and straight up love that you would never have with “associates.”

Jesus didn’t come so that we could be associates with God.

Jesus came so that we could be in relationship with God.

What this means is that the Creator of the Universe desires to know me and love me, personally. And He sent Jesus to Earth to demonstrate that love for us, to demonstrate that He desires a relationship with us, not to merely be associated with us. And if I open my heart to Him, I can enter into a relationship with Him deeper than anything we could ever experience with humans. 

What caused this to click in my brain was when we moved to North Carolina in 2019. Joanna and I both left Virginia to go to college together at Campbell University before we got married, and it was our first time as “independent adults” with our families 3 hours away from us. Not only was Joanna a huge catalyst in helping me develop a relationship with God at this time, but also the church we began attending. This church was full of the most friendly, encouraging, God-loving people I had ever met. They knew what it meant to be in relationship with God, how to love Him, and how to let that spill into every area of your life. They preached and taught about that constantly until it just became my identity and my number one desire. The power of Christian community is REAL!

I was doing all the same “Christian things” of church, prayer, Bible-reading, and serving that I had been doing from a young age. But, this time it didn’t come from a place of obligation, it came from a place of desire. I didn’t do all of those things because I had to. I wanted to get to know God on a deeper level - this Creator of the Universe that somehow wants to love on little old me - so I chose to go to church and spend quiet time in prayer and Bible-reading to wrap my head around this.

And as I did these “Christian things” now with purpose, I began to notice the actual life-changing impact that it has. I interacted with people differently, I felt that “peace that surpasses understanding” promised to us in Philippians 4, and best of all, I felt my heart longing to be in heaven for eternity. It all stems from wanting to know and love God first, and then everything Christian-y falls into place after that. 

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You may be asking: “Cool story, but why is this pertinent to my health?”

As my relationship with God began to have its full effect on my life, it began to alter my perspective on everyday things. I could (and will) share tons of stories about that, but to keep it focused on the topic at hand, it shifted my perspective on health and fitness. As I mentioned earlier, I’m a huge sports guy, and I love working out. But if you’re only playing a sport just to win a championship, you’re missing out on a lot. And if you’re only working out so that you can be healthy and look good, you’re ultimately going to be pretty disappointed in the end. Whether you win 20 championships or none, what’s going to happen when you die? If you bust your tail to be healthy so that you die when you’re 100 instead of 50, what does it matter if you’re not spending eternity in heaven?

So instead of having my number one priority be winning or losing, or having chiseled pecs and washboard abs, I had to make drawing closer to God my number one priority. From there, I can use sports and working out as the means by which I execute priority number one.

Hearing my testimony first is critical so that you understand where I am coming from in all the coaching and advice that I give. I’m in the business of making God a big deal, both in my life and yours. Of seeing every way, both big and small, that our Creator has designed Creation with the subtleties of His Character. 

Our health journeys are hand-crafted by God to be another avenue for us to understand His Character. He designed our bodies with good reasons to operate in a certain fashion, and if we neglect to take care of our bodies, or if we even separate God from our health practices, we miss out on precious opportunities to know and love Him more.

Thankfully, many people much smarter than me have dedicated their life’s work to study the human body through scientific research. They’re not all Christians, but all it takes is studying their findings through a Christian lens, and suddenly you see God’s fingerprints all over everything.

I follow Jesus, and I study the human body. With those things combined, I strive to put God back in the fitness industry. To equip you to take care of your health in the way God designed it to be taken care of. To not just coach on implementing healthy physical and spiritual habits, but to understand why God calls you to that.

Prioritizing our relationship with God does not give us an excuse to drop the ball on taking care of our bodies.

Continue reading Part 2 of this Introduction Series where I share my fitness background!