Strength: Weight room or functional?

I want to first say that I am so delighted that Father has been dropping some creative things my way lately. I was on the basketball court on Sunday (yes your boy gets down) and I am balling against a few cats (4 on 4 to be exact) and like most cats in the hood they want to talk noise. So I get picked up and this one cat in particular hollers out, “I got him.” So, the game begins and I must admit he was a little bigger than I (I mean I am only 170 [172 wet]and he about 190) but I use every bit of my strength on the court. Ok, enough with the small talk this cat talked noise the whole game and did absolutely nothing. He was mad because I moved him off the block, posted him up, and took outside for jumpers and drives.  If anyone of you knows me, I don’t mind talking trash back because I am confident I can back it up (lol)….So towards the end of the game, which we won 12-3, I tell him, “you need to get some functional strength.”

I know many of you are wondering like this youngster, “where is he going with this one?” Many times people have “weight room strength” but have no “functional strength.” I mean they can lift a lot of weight but really don’t know how to use their strength to their fullest ability or don’t know how to function with their strength. This cat thought because he was bigger than I that he could push me around but he had a rude awakening when I was not easily moved. As I was thinking about this and expounding upon this very concept at the court to a couple of cats, I had an epiphany! Many of us as Christians have “weight room strength” also, but we have no “functional strength” For many of us we operate well within the walls of the church where there is accountability, but once we are in the world we lose all sense of who we are. We wild out! We do not function well in a society that requires (in fact needs) us to be strong.  My question to you is, “do you have weight room strength only, or do you also possess functional strength?”

Remember the scripts declare, “I can do all things through Christ which strengthens me” (Phil. 4:13)

Robert L. Wagner (SE7EN)