Scripture: Isaiah 43:1-7
When I was a kid in the ’70s and early ’80s, the television airwaves were filled with commercials and commercial jingles encouraging us to enlist in the armed services: Remember? “Be all that you can be…” Or [sing] “We don’t ask for experience, we give it/ You don’t read it in a book, you live it.” “It’s not just a job, it’s an adventure.” Anyway, in one of these commercials, an army recruit is singing about basic training, and he says, “Muscles are a-hurtin’/ That I never knew I had.” But that was good that his muscles were hurting, because the idea was, “No pain, no gain.”
I share this with you because, let me tell you, “muscles are a-hurtin’ that I never knew I had.” Why? Because I did the most cliché thing in the world during the first week of January: I made a New Year’s Resolution to get in better shape and lose some weight. Because I stepped on the scale on January 1, and I did not like the number that came up. In spite of my strong suspicions that the scale must be malfunctioning, the truth is I want to change…
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