Ignition

For the six of you that read my blog, you may have noticed some design changes.  What started out as a place where I could lay down my thoughts has obviously evolved into a tool to help craft a new me, and so the "Internal Ignition" moniker has undergone a change as well.

Originally, I used that phrase to talk about God being a consuming fire (Deut. 4:24) and how we need to be consumed from the inside out.  What starts as a spark can turn into a great conflagration, especially when that spark is undeniably Divine in nature.  The interesting thing is, even with a shift in focus, the idea of ignition still holds true.  This is oversimplifying things greatly, but my goal through dieting and exercise is to restart my metabolism--to get my natural rhythms burning hotter than they usually do; in essence, internal ignition.

For some reason, when I got to college, my usually trusty internal motor just stopped.  I went from weighing 160 lbs all throughout high school, regardless of what I ate or how much, to almost 250 by the time I started losing weight in early January.  I don't look the same, I don't feel the same, and I routinely get quizzical looks at airports when security officials compare my current visage to that of my drivers license, taken my senior year of high school.

This happens in our spiritual lives as well.  We burn and burn and burn, lighting the way for others, acting as a "city on a hill," and (depending on the quality of your Sunday schooling) telling others that we will never hide our lights under a bushel. (If you have no idea what I'm talking about, either consider yourself lucky or mourn that you missed out entirely. The jury is still out.)  Then, seemingly, one day the fire just dies.  We can't do what we used to do, we can't pour ourselves out anymore, we just can't...ignite.  Whether we like it or not, we have a spiritual metabolism.  That's why we experience things like spiritual highs and lows.  When we run out of fuel/stop caring for ourselves the fire goes out, and that's a huge problem.

I'm sure the similarities can be stretched out (the quality of fuel we're using, new friends, new habits, new pressures and stressors, etc) but the point is, most of us at some time in our lives find ourselves craving a new spark. It's not uncommon that I find myself staring in the mirror, looking for some signs of change I can hang my hat on as I fight, checking the numbers, chalking up moral victories along the way, and constantly reminding myself that its a marathon, not a sprint.  What is uncommon is that those exercises can be applied to my spiritual AND physical lives.  We can't neglect one and feed the other anymore than we can let our physical or spiritual selves waste away and stay whole.  I hope I can work as hard reigniting my fire for my Creator as I do trying to get my stupid metabolism restarted.

Here's to letting God consume me in every way possible, and for a rededicated internal ignition.