For about 2 months now I have been doing something that I have never done before...yoga! I had been running pretty faithfully, but then I needed something that would help me strengthen some specific areas...so I was introduced to a yoga studio close by. I LOVE it and love that when I walk in I feel like I am back in India again! Its awesome.
I was always taught that yoga was something that Christians didn't do, that it was a way of the New-Age'ers and not something that Christ-followers should "mess with" and let enter their mind. 2 months into it and I couldn't DISAGREE more! Yes, there is an eastern influence (its orgins are in India) but for me going into yoga is something that connects my whole...a holistic exercise (physically, mentally and spiritually). As with everything there is a "filter" that I use to apply certain teachings with my understanding as a Christ-follower.
Yesterday the yoga instructer was explaining a story (yes, yoga was on my list of things to do) and I walked away with this metaphor playing constantly in my mind all day. See in India elephants are used a lot for daily work and manual labor. (Imagine going down a hwy in rush hour with elephants...its true.) They are trained when they are small by putting a metal cuff around their ankle and being chained to a tree so everytime an elephant would start walking away the tree would nudge it back. Later in life when their work calls them away from the training tree, all the owner needs to do is to put that cuff back on its ankle to give the feeling of life back at the tree that pulls them back...their physical power limited.
I thought...isn't that just the same with me? I have struggled this month with fear. A fear that I won't give you details on but I am sure that you have felt for as well...a deep down fear that causes for paranoia in my heart and blurred vision for what is not real. This fear I was released from long ago when Christ decided I was too valuable to have to take it on by myself. In 2 Tim 1:7 it says, "For God has not given us a spirit of fear but of power and of love and of a sound mind."
The past weeks this fear is like the cuff around my ankle, I feel it there and it keeps pulling me back to what I am no longer in bondage to...and sometimes I am the one that puts that cuff on myself by listening in on the lies around me. Its time to be FREE...time to not be held back by something that God has released me from. Its time to enjoy the POWER and LOVE that walks me away and shows me the freedom that I can enjoy!
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4 comments:
Wow! What insight and all from yoga! I am a lover of Yoga and too believe that it is good for the whole person. When our minds are already set on Christ we can enter into his presence even in a classroom full of people who don't share the same beliefs abour God and even hear from him there! Obviously you heard from him, Jamie. It is amazing how he speaks right to our hearts.
Jamie, you are so cool to think of something so profound -- in shape too. I think that if I was in yoga and they were telling me a story I'd be hyperventilating so much I'd barely know it was about an elephant. I am proud of your strength (body and mind).
Totally true - Satan uses those cuffs to make us think we are still in bondage - when in fact, we have been set free to live abundantly in Christ!!!
I think the problem some Christians have with yoga is that often the "Om" or "Aum" is used for meditation.
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