How's your core?
There are biceps, and there is real strength
And old friend of mine - Mark Paulsen - was the strength coach at the University of New Mexoco and their athletic teams. He is on my mind because they just named the new weight room after him. We used to work out together and I was interested, knowing full-well that knowledge and trends change, in his current emphasis in the training of athletes.
He said, “The core. Making sure our core is strong.”
Now this was years ago. Today, it is common for work-out aficionados to talk about “the core.” But that was the first time I had ever heard about such a thing.
My friend and I in our younger athletic days were perhaps overly interested in working out biceps and triceps, pectorals and "quads" and "hams." But his attention had changed since then and so I looked it up. “The core” is
a bunch of strange-sounding muscles responsible for stabilizing and protecting the spine. If “the core” is not strong, experts have determined, it doesn’t really matter what is happening in athletic competition with your biceps and triceps.
Core weak - athlete weak. Period.
It is amazing where this truth pops up once you start looking for it. For instance, I was studying the Matthew version of Jesus and Peter walking on the water. The disciples, during the storm, were fearful. Right smack dab in the middle of the narrative (just about 90 words before, and just about 90 words after) are the words “I Am.” Two chapters before the great declaration of Peter at Caesarea Phillipi (“Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God!”) it is said that the disciples right there in the boat, having heard “I Am” and watching both Jesus and Peter walk on water and seeing Jesus control the weather,
...worshiped Him, saying, “You are certainly God’s Son!” (14:33)
Whatever your situation today - storm or otherwise - it is a good question. Is Jesus your great “I Am?” The surety of your reply determines the strength of your core.