The one where my wife is my friend

My wife likes to swim and she goes to a local gym. This weekend she was allowed to take a friend for free and she chose me! We had a good evening and were grateful to our friends who looked after the kids while we went.

While Tracey swam I went in the gym. I have lost some weight in the past year through sensible diet (most days anyway!) and cycling on an exercise bike (some days anyway!) and so I headed straight to the bikes at the gym. The bikes had large screens that like my bike at home give you a read out for speed, distance heart rate etc, but with these gym bikes you can also watch TV on the screen. Ooh I thought as I saw the shiny screen. After cycling for a few minutes (and after not being able to find anything interesting to watch at 7.45 on a Friday evening) I noticed that there was an option for radio or games rather than TV. I tried games and spent the next 15 minutes cycling and playing Sudoku which was kind of cool except that when I had stopped I noticed that I hadn’t cycled very far compared to the distance I would have covered without playing a game. I switched to a rowing machine with no TV or games and did some more focused exercise before joining Tracey in the spa pool for a chat.

This whole experience made me wonder how much we miss the point in life? I was excited by the games but playing them meant that I wasn’t exercising which was the main point of that part of the visit. What do we spend the most time doing and are those things really the most important?

Out of all her friends, my wife chose me. We had a great time chatting last night. Surely this was the main reason we went. Spending time with my best friend is really important to me.

I believe that God is with us always (see God is closer than you think) and I also began to think about how easy it is to ignore him because we are distracted by things in life. The irony is that God wants to be involved in those and the other parts of our lives as he helps guide, lead and inspire us. God also invites us to be involved in his life and work which is a real honour and privilege, it’s a shame if I’m to busy for that.

So what is the point? Why are you here? Decide for yourself and then live for that.