The PAX (almost all) met at Flame’s house and moseyed to East Texas park (~1/2 mile). Flame’s 2.0, Sticks rode two wheels to tag along.
Warm-A-Rama
Morrocan Night Clubs, Huggy Bears, Abe Vagodas, Grass Pickers, Monkey Humpers, Plank, Merkins, Peter Parkers, Plank.
Starting on the sideline of a basketball court we …
1. Lunged to the other side.
2. Nur’d to the other side and sprinted back.
3. Bear Crawled to the other side and Crab Walked back
4 men stair climbed the bleachers 5 times while the other 4 did SSHs, the flapjack.
Now the main Thang … a 4 v. 4 basketball game. Fun and dangerous all at the same time. The two shortest among us were team captains, Sticks and Dropbox. We can’t discuss which team won because it wasn’t mine.
After the game was over we moseyed back to Flame’s for the below devotional. A lot of great discussion was had on the patio. Good work today men, now get to sleep and vacate the Fartsack in the am for the next workout.
The Full Eight Seconds
“What’s the secret to being a good bull rider?”
When a newspaper reporter asked a Montana cowboy that question, he pushed back his hat and grinned: “You’ve just gotta want to hang on worse than the bull wants to throw you off.”
Jacob might have preferred eight seconds on the back of a bull to the situation he faced. As he traveled to Canaan—a journey that would reunite him with Esau, his brother—Jacob carried not only his possessions but also a heart full of guilt and sin. He’d taken his brother’s birthright and blessing and had lived ever since in constant fear that Esau would seek revenge. Feeling desperate and overwhelmed, Jacob spent a night alone to take advantage of a little peace and quiet.
Instead, he got the fight of his life—a wrestling match with God!
Have you experienced something similar? Maybe you’re troubled with a stressful situation at work, a dispute at church, a disagreement with a friend or a struggle within your family. So you seek a place that will give you a moment or two of peace or stability, only to find that the emotional and spiritual load you’ve been carrying has settled firmly on your shoulders. And rather than clinging to the One who can provide real relief, you find yourself making the situation worse by dwelling on the burden and letting worry get the best of you.
Sometimes you have to put everything else aside, reach out to God and hold on with everything you’ve got. The only way you can really escape the burden of sin and guilt is by embracing the One who defeated these burdens—along with death. Make no mistake—the God who created the world, who holds the stars in check and who knows the most minute issues that you struggle with, cares. He loves you and is waiting for you to trust him with your cares and concerns—present, past and future.
To paraphrase that wise Montana cowboy, “You’ve just gotta hang on to God more than sin and guilt want to pull you away.”
In what situations are you tempted to let go of God? Why?
Genesis 32:22-32 New International Version (NIV)
Jacob Wrestles With God
22 That night Jacob got up and took his two wives, his two female servants and his eleven sons and crossed the ford of the Jabbok.23 After he had sent them across the stream, he sent over all his possessions. 24 So Jacob was left alone, and a man wrestled with him till daybreak. 25 When the man saw that he could not overpower him, he touched the socket of Jacob’s hip so that his hip was wrenched as he wrestled with the man. 26 Then the man said, “Let me go, for it is daybreak.”
But Jacob replied, “I will not let you go unless you bless me.”
27 The man asked him, “What is your name?”
“Jacob,” he answered.
28 Then the man said, “Your name will no longer be Jacob, but Israel,[a]because you have struggled with God and with humans and have overcome.”
29 Jacob said, “Please tell me your name.”
But he replied, “Why do you ask my name?” Then he blessed him there.
30 So Jacob called the place Peniel,[b] saying, “It is because I saw God face to face, and yet my life was spared.”
31 The sun rose above him as he passed Peniel,[c] and he was limping because of his hip. 32 Therefore to this day the Israelites do not eat the tendon attached to the socket of the hip, because the socket of Jacob’s hip was touched near the tendon.