I Found God in Bodybuilding

A unified perception of body, soul, spirit, and mind creates a spirituality that includes the body” (Fasting by Scot McKnight).

I found God in bodybuilding. How sacrilegious these words seemed. But it was true. Yes, God, had saved my soul, but, one day as I was dieting down and for what would be my last bodybuilding competition, I purposed in my heart that this arduous diet would not be about food fantasies but God. My evenings consisted of one chicken breast, a sweet potato the size of my palm and a cup and half of broccoli. Each meal left me not just still hungry but unsatisfied. A cup of herbal tea helped assuage the hunger, but it was really the Word of God that began to satisfy me. My favorite scriptures became Psalm 139: 13-15:

You made my whole being;
you formed me in my mother’s body.
I praise you because you made me in an amazing and wonderful way.
What you have done is wonderful.
I know this very well.
You saw my bones being formed
as I took shape in my mother’s body.
When I was put together there,
you saw my body as it was formed.
(New Century Version)

I had memorized the scriptures by heart. As I flexed in front of the mirror, I lathered the Words over my body like oil. In the past, I would have criticized my shrunken body, but instead I found in these words a precious truth that went beyond what I saw staring back at me in the mirror.

God had made my whole being, and I was “wonderful”. I found in these words my Creator, my validation—that I was significant, and it would not be a win that would define me. And that this body of His would literally praise Him always for He had made me in an “amazing and wonderful way!”