As I looked around at the others in the workout room and settled onto my yoga mat, I thought, “I can handle this. It’s just a few stretches, some funny looking poses and a great way to relax.” Because I’d heard people warn that yoga involved meditating to non-Christian gods, I even had a few scriptures in mind to focus on… However, once the yoga class started, all I had time to focus on was trying to not fall on my face.
“Oh God! Oh God!” was all I could mutter between short breaths as I attempted to do Yoga for the first time a few weeks ago. Between trying to keep up with the rest of the class and figuring out how to do the poses, I was exhausted at the end of the hour-long session. A few co-workers had been attending yoga sessions for a few weeks and had boasted how much they enjoyed it. Also, I’d wanted to try some new physical fitness activities and thought yoga might be a good fit.
30 minutes into the session, my mind was wondering: “Am I doing it right? Is my body supposed to twist like that? When will the teacher stop? The more I twisted and stretched, the more I began to think that maybe yoga wasn’t for me. It was frustrating because I knew that I didn’t look like a yoga master but that some of the poses made me look like a fool. A few times, I lost my balance and fell over. But I kept trying!
When the hour was up, I quickly put my shoes back on and rolled up my mat. My energetic walk had slowed to a snail’s pace as I made my way across the room. I did my best to smile as I placed the mat back in its cart. But the teacher was watching me and asked very sweetly, “Will you be coming back?”
“Not in this lifetime” was what I thought. “I’ll be back next week” was what I said. “Who just said that,” I thought…surely not me. Her smile widened as she told me that she thought I did a good job even though it was my first time. “Don’t worry about whether you get every pose right. It’s all about the effort. You’ll get there. Just keep trying.” she gently encouraged.
This experience reminds me of Hebrews 11:6 which says, “And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.”
My brief experience with yoga reminds me of how much we may resist God when he is stretching us and trying to get us to stay at the next level. We pray for God to take us to next level but complain or doubt that we are doing “it” right (the faith thing) once we are there. Most importantly, God blesses our efforts when we continue to stretch our faith and seek Him.