The only thing I felt was the satisfaction of locking out a heavy deadlift—my hamstrings fired, my shoulders locked back, my hips thrust forward, all of the muscles in my core stiffened—lift successful. Then I lowered the bar back to the ground. Bang. I didn’t feel the callouses peel off my palms, but when I looked down I saw the pain before I felt it. For the first time I knew. I knew a barbell was a friend and an enemy. I knew that which could make me better, would also make me tougher, but in the process it was going to strip some of the soft parts of me away. I knew I would have pain, but that was part of the process to being bigger, faster, stronger, and more resilient. I knew then that a barbell was a part of my future, and it was going to shape me.
Barbells have been a staple in my life since I was fourteen years old. Of course, early on, my relationship with a barbell was the result of what a football coach expected of me, but over time that relationship became more important and more beneficial. Barbells are not the only tool for building strength, but they have been the primary tool that I have used for all my life.
A barbell need not be fancy or expensive. Technology has done little to improve upon a barbell in the last fifty years. But, a barbell is a man-maker in more ways that one. Barbells teach, train, test, torture, and treat. Barbells have helped me to build friendships, survive heartaches, and overcome hardships. On a good day, a barbell is a welcomed companion. On a bad day, a barbell is a cold enemy. My experience with a barbell changes from day to day and year to year, but not because the barbell changes. In fact, the unchanging nature of a barbell is the most helpful aspect of it in a man’s life.
No matter what is happening in your life, a barbell will always be 45 pounds of knurled steel. It may be rusty or new, but it will weigh the same thing today as it did yesterday and as it will ten years from now. You don’t get to change the barbell, you only change and adapt to fit the barbell. And that is its greatest lesson.
We live in a world that is bent on convincing people they do not need to change, but rather that the world is somehow required to change around them. This effort at manufactured reality does not fit in line with the real world. If you don’t like hot weather, you can go inside or you can move to Alaska, but you cannot change the fact that August in South Carolina feels like the hottest place on earth. The world does not change to fit your desires. You are required to change to fit the situation in which you find yourself.
Every day I grip a barbell, I am reminded that it does not change. It does not care how much I have eaten or how little I have slept. The barbell does not change, it expects me to change and adapt. Overtime, as I load more weight and lift more reps, the barbell even changes me.
A barbell puts me in touch with an unchanging reality built around the objective truth of its size and weight. The barbell demands for me to be transformed, and it is the instrument of my transformation. In many ways, a barbell is a physical manifestation of the spiritual reality and expectation of Romans 12:1-2,
I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.
God demands of his followers that they be transformed. All people are born into sin, and as a result of that sin, stand outside of God’s family. But, through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ on the cross, an invitation is given to all who call upon his name to be forgiven for their sins and to be saved. That invitation to salvation is not an invitation to stay the same, it is an invitation to a radical transformation. God demands transformation of his followers, but he does not only demand it, He is the agent of that transformation.
God does for his followers what he expects of them. Christians are commanded, “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed . . .” The expectation built into this command is that people are not only capable of changing, they are actually expected to change. If you are reading this as a follower of Christ, the expectation is that you would encounter the unchanging Word of God on a regularly basis and discover its ability to change you. Every day you are given opportunities to engage with the Word of God. Some days it will be a balm to your weary soul, some days it will come as an enemy against your sinful desires, but always it will be the same and always it will demand of you change.
The man of God is called to constantly change, to constantly put off the old self,
to put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness (Ephesians 4:22-24).
The old self is the sinful self, the self that separates you from God and from good. When a person comes to Christ, the old self clings, it doesn’t depart immediately. Through regular engagement with God through his Word, in prayer, with the gathered church, and other spiritual disciplines, the saved man begins to look more like a man of God and less like a man of the world. But, it does not happen overnight.
Like engagement with that barbell, it takes time. A man needs to go back to the things of God over and over again and watch as the things of God put the things of the world to death and instead reshape the man in God’s image. At times the Word of God will strip away the parts of you that need to be replaced or repaired or reborn, but God only strips away that which is in the way of you being the person he created you to be.
Men need to spend time with things that do not change, things that force men to change or be broken. A barbell will shape a man or break a man. It is cold and unfeeling. God is unchanging and his word is unchanging—but he is not cold, he is love. Time with the unchanging God of the universe will make a man or break a man—often time with God will first break a man and then remake him.
God makes demands on the life of men, but only after he has given his life for the life of men. Time with the Lord will demand a change in your life, but that change will result in a better version of you. You will not spend time with the Lord and leave unchanged, but you will not regret the change, regardless of how painful it becomes.
