Why The Church Must Reclaim The Body For God's Glory

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
Welcome to the Faithful Fitness Podcast for my dad. Coach
Alex Van Houghton helps you get stronger and mind, body,
and spirit. He believes that your body is a temple,
so taking good care of it is an actual worship.

Speaker 2 (00:15):
I should know.

Speaker 1 (00:15):
I live with him every week. He brings truth from
the Bible, tool some science and stories that will set
your heart on fire. May God bless you to become
everything He made you to be, just one percent better
every single day.

Speaker 3 (00:30):
What's up, guys. This is coach Alex ben Houghton. I'm
the Faithful Fitness Podcast. I'm super excited to spend some
time with you guys today and to bring this conversation
to you with Wes Shoy. Wes is one of the
few pastors in the world that I've gotten to brush
shoulders with so far, at least that believe that there's
something important about the intersection of faith and fitness.

Speaker 2 (00:52):
Wes, how you doing today, brother dude?

Speaker 4 (00:54):
Great? Thanks for having me, Alex. This is awesome.

Speaker 3 (00:57):
Yeah, thank you for agreeing to jump on here. I
really I do want to start with that question. Because
you're a pastor. I'd love to hear more about your church.
I believe you're operating in Denver, Colorado, and as a pastor. Well,
I have a pastor and I'm also a children's ministry pastor,
so I brush shoulders with a lot of pastors.

Speaker 2 (01:17):
It's not normal.

Speaker 3 (01:19):
It's not normal, not that it's not It could be
good if it was normal, but it's not normal for
a pastor to also be what's the word an advocate
for physical stewardship or in layman's terms, it's not normal
to hear things from the pulpit about nutrition and exercise.
So I'd love to hear first, how did you come

(01:42):
to being a pastor and then at what point did
that cross paths with fitness in your life.

Speaker 4 (01:47):
Yeah, it's funny because I didn't start my life thinking, hey,
I want to be a pastor. I came to faith
in my early life, like nine ten years old, and
after that got into some trouble with some friends and

(02:09):
found that there was true forgiveness when you get in trouble,
and that was my actual, I feel like real encounter
with the love of Christ for the first time at thirteen,
I think was when I started thinking maybe there is
something to do with ministry, and I got involved with

(02:30):
a small ministry back in Indiana where I grew up,
and when I graduated high school, I started going to
a local college. But while I was there, I could
really just felt like this is hollow. What I'm doing
is hollow, what I'm learning is hollow. It's not what
I'm supposed to be doing. And some mentors of mine

(02:51):
suggested going to a Christian college, So I went to
a Moody Bible Institute in Chicago, which was a wonderful experience,
and at the same time, there was a lot that
nobody was talking about with me about my body, and
as a result, I gained a lot of weight because
there was a lot of unprocessed stuff that I wasn't

(03:14):
dealing with, didn't even know how to have language around.
And that showed up in my body. It showed up
in what I was eating, It showed up in my
energy levels, it showed up in my general feeling of
well being, and I didn't know what that was. I

(03:37):
didn't know what that was. I graduated from college thought
I was going to go into the military, and I
actually had signed up. I worked so hard to lose
weight alex to get into the Navy, and I had
a six month time between when I signed up and
when I was supposed to ship to boot camp, and

(03:58):
that six months I spent with a missionary in Germany,
sort of interning with him, and the whole time I
was there, I felt like, like the Sawa said, the
hand of the Lord was heavy upon me. I felt
that just this very strong sense that this is not
what you're here to do. You're not here to be
a guy in the Navy. As great as that is,

(04:21):
that's not what I have you for. So I came
back home to Indiana and trying to figure out what
in the world to do with my life, and another
mentor told me, hey, maybe you should check out seminary,
which I thought at first was a really stupid idea
because I just finished college. I didn't want to go
back for more school school right, But that got me

(04:46):
looking into military chaplaincy, and that got me out to Colorado,
where Denver Seminary has an amazing chaplaincy program. And again,
the Lord had different ideas than I did, and I
ended up as a part time worship director at a
local church, just trying to make some money while doing
ministry in seminary. And I'm now for twenty years. I

(05:11):
didn't start off looking to be a pastor, but that's
where I've ended up and it's been an amazing journey.
And along the way, I have learned a lot of
stuff that they didn't teach me in seminary, and they
didn't teach me in church, and nobody in my family
knew about the intersection between faith and fitness. That's where

(05:32):
I am.

Speaker 3 (05:33):
Yeah, awesome, awesome, that's such a cool story and journey.
And I'd like to place myself as a father in
your story as well. So you're going to Chaplaincy in Denver, Colorado?
Are you married and a father by then?

Speaker 2 (05:52):
Like? Where are you in your journey as a husband
and father? Yeah?

Speaker 4 (05:56):
I met my wife at church two years after I
start came to Denver and we've been there ever since.
So I graduated right about the time that our second
child was about to be born.

Speaker 3 (06:10):
Okay, okay, yeah, awesome, And fast forward to now, how
old are your kids?

Speaker 4 (06:14):
I have a son who's sixteen, a daughter who's thirteen,
and a daughter who's ten.

Speaker 3 (06:18):
Okay, awesome, bless you for being a father to daughters.
I have two sons myself, and I'm hoping there are
men out there who are raising awesome daughters so that
they have great wives someday.

Speaker 2 (06:28):
But I know nothing about raising daughters.

Speaker 4 (06:30):
So it's awesome.

Speaker 2 (06:32):
It's so awesome, awesome.

Speaker 3 (06:34):
I can see the gleam in your eye when you
talk about them. So it sounds like it sounds like
it's a party at your house. So I want to
talk about this fitness thing. So you had some struggles
early on in not necessarily your ministry work, but personally
with your own body. And this idea that there's a

(06:54):
there's a theological thing here that I'd like to separate.
We cover this and we have a devotion coming out
in just a couple months, and it's called Faithful Fitness,
a forty day devotional for Christian stewardship.

Speaker 2 (07:08):
And one of the things that we try.

Speaker 3 (07:09):
To tackle in there is is there's this idea that
permeates the church that our spirit and our flesh are separate. Yep, right,
this this idea, And you know, Paul says it. This
is a very famous famous piece that he wrote, Oh
wretched man, and that I am what am I supposed
to do with this body of sin? And he talks
about the war between his flesh and his spirit, that

(07:32):
which I do want to do, I don't do that
which I don't want to do.

Speaker 2 (07:35):
I do like what am I supposed to do?

Speaker 3 (07:38):
Right and so and so in Christianity and the Church
at large and might be different denominationally, but I've I've
been through several different experiences with several different denominations. That's
pretty it's pretty robust that my eternal spirit and my
fleshly body meat sack, that it's wrapped in right, that

(08:00):
that they're separate, and the meat sacks kind of a
bad thing. It has lots of lots of wants and
desires and and blah blah blah, that that generally contradict
the the good spirit that God has given me in
Christ Jesus, and and like it's easy to wrap your
head around that, right, it's easy to wrap wrap your
head around you know, sometimes I crave things that aren't

(08:22):
good for me. Addiction can can can grab my mind
and my body and cause me to do things I
don't want to do.

Speaker 2 (08:29):
You know, you can feel.

Speaker 3 (08:30):
That that dichotomy between those two things. But there's also
this idea that Paul also brings to the table, that
that my body is a living sacrifice, a temple of
the Holy Spirit, and and so in in in that
that line of thinking, there there's actually that's actually the opposite.

(08:52):
It's that that my my spirit and my my body
and my mind are connected, right and and where I
see this in the church, I.

Speaker 2 (09:01):
See a very a very.

Speaker 3 (09:07):
Stressed relationship between an individual's spirit and mind and their body.
And the way it looks is it's very hard to
tell that that in the church we are using this
body that God's given us in a in a stewardly fashion,

(09:28):
where we are we are taking good care of ourselves,
we are being healthy as we know how to be,
we are moving on a regular basis, and and and
challenging ourselves in a way that's positive and beneficial. It
seems like in the church's mind. And I say church,
I don't mean necessarily individuals, but but big c church.

(09:48):
If you listen to sermons, and even sometimes if you
look at pastors who are delivering this these sermons, there
is a separation between taking good care of my body
and what that has to do with my ultimate calling
or my eternal spirit or whatnot. And so I've been

(10:10):
working to wrestle this out personally myself, and I've been
working to wrestle this out in my practice with my
clients and even in my local church.

Speaker 2 (10:16):
It sounds like you have been on a similar journey.

Speaker 3 (10:19):
Can you talk about when you, as an individual, maybe
not as a pastor or maybe not as a leader yet,
but when you as an individual realized that there was
a connection between my body, the way I'm feeding myself,
the way I'm moving myself, the way I'm resting. That
when you realized there was a connection between your body

(10:41):
and the faith that you professed were called to and
we're practicing on a regular basis.

Speaker 4 (10:46):
Yeah, I think it came post seminary because in my
doctrinal orals, I had to defend my doctrinal thesis and
at the end of that one of the professors on
panel had said, the one area I think you need
to focus on once you're out of here, do some
more study on, is what does it mean to be

(11:08):
created in the image of God? And that's what got
me going down a pretty big road and when it
came to my theological studies and and unfortunately, what we
have in the West is a very strong Greco Roman
idea of the makeup of the human person. And so

(11:32):
we do get that body bad, spirit good, which is
very platonic. It's also very gnostic, which is a heresy,
right that that this the the body we live in
is bad and the spirit that is eternal is good.
And unfortunately, our our translations, even of Paul, make it

(11:56):
hard for us to see. He's not saying that the
bodies bad, and he's using two very different words sarks
and soma, sarks meaning flesh and soma meaning flesh. But
flesh is that word flesh we throw around a lot
in the Christian culture, like what does that even mean?
When Paul's talking about flesh, he's talking The translation should

(12:20):
probably be old nature, the old nature versus the body,
the physical body that not only I have, but he's me. Right.
God didn't create junk, right, God made what he loved.
He got down into the dirt and with his hands

(12:43):
he formed humanity, this intimate, loving, face to face creation
and breathe life into us. Right, He made what he loved,
and then Christ himself takes on a physical body. He
puts on what he loves, and then the spirit in

(13:05):
dwells our physical bodies what he loves. And when we
read scripture. We're always dealing with translation, right, because we're
taking Hebrew and Greek and Aramaic, and we're trying to
find the dynamic equivalent to the English language or whatever
language is your language, And unfortunately you're making interpretive decisions

(13:31):
while you're translating. You have to, it's impossible not to.
And so even in the Book of Deuteronomy, when when
Jesus says, you know, the greatest commandment is to love
the Lord your God with all your heart, with all
your soul, with all your mind, with all your body,
that's very different in the Hebrew context than it is

(13:52):
in the English context because even the words that we
use that are translated heart love, it's actually it's like
the seed of my emotions and desires.

Speaker 2 (14:05):
Right.

Speaker 4 (14:05):
That's not even my body desiring things, it's me desiring things.
When we talk about our nephesh, which we translate body,
that doesn't mean body, it means being. It means your being.

(14:26):
In fact, in the Hebrew mind, there was no separation
between soul and body and mind. They were all very
interconnected and one, and you couldn't divorce one from the other.
And even that word that we think of as we
hear strength, heart, soul, mind, and strength. That word is

(14:47):
actually an adjective. It means much. To love the Lord
with all your heart, all your desires and emotions. To
love the Lord with all your being, and to love
the Lord with all your muchness is really what the
Hebrew's saying. So it's saying, love the Lord, your God,
with every piece of who you are, and that includes

(15:09):
your body, which is you. Like if I punch you
in the face, you don't take me to court for
property damage. You take me to court for for assault. Right,
it's your body's not a thing separate from you. And
certainly we can talk about my fingers, right, but I

(15:30):
can't talk about my fingers apart from the rest of
my body. And if you hurt me emotionally, the same
center in my brain feels pain. That does when I
smash my finger with a hammer. My body and my
mind and my spirit are so beautifully and lovingly and

(15:52):
creatively interconnected. Really, heart, the body, mind, spirit a try
you being, as our father, son and Holy Spirit are
a tri une being. Now we're not three people, we're three,
three parts in one. That's part of being created in

(16:16):
the very image of the God. We love and serve,
and what happens when I divorce I see my body
as something other. Then it's really easy to worship it
in some contexts, and it's also really easy to obsess,

(16:39):
to neglect, or to abuse it. Because if it doesn't
matter what I do to this body because it's junk, right,
if it's bad, then I can do whatever I want
to to this body and with this body, and that
infects everything.

Speaker 3 (16:57):
And I would even hazard to say, because of the
nature that you were talking about earlier, I'm not going
to tend toward positive powerful things. I'm going to tend
toward negative things that when I separate those two is
what you were speaking about.

Speaker 2 (17:12):
There made me think there was there.

Speaker 3 (17:15):
In the devotional we talk about the discipline of integrity,
an integrity not meaning necessarily I do the same thing
behind closed doors as I do when other people are watching,
or honesty, which are decent definitions when you're trying to
explain what integrity means to a kid, right, but integrity
coming from the word integer, meaning a whole thing, all

(17:37):
put together, all the inseparable part of something. That's integrity.
When Jesus spoke at the end of his sermon on
the Mount. He said, if any man hears my words
and practices them, he will be like a man who's
built his house on a rock, as opposed to a
man who's built his house on sand. Integrity means that foundation,

(18:00):
that inseparable thing. And the reason I speak about that
here is because when when I say to God, I
will serve you, I will follow Jesus. I will walk
in his footsteps. I choose the narrow way. Please teach me.
You know, when I when I pray those prayers, what
I'm also saying is I am going to bring my

(18:23):
whole being under your lordship. There's no peace of it
that gets to be separate from that. There's no piece
of me that I'm not giving to you. I'm giving
my all. So to speak right, and Jesus said this.
He said, no man can serve two masters. Either he
will hate the one and love the other, or despise
the one and follow the other. Right and and so

(18:44):
so in that when when you're speaking and I hear,
I hear, hey, you know that that false idea that
our body and spirit are separate, and this dog on
flesh bag that I've got to deal with, you know,
likes to do things, and I can't quite figure out
how to manage it. You know, uh that that that
that truly is I believe, And if I understand you correctly,

(19:10):
it sounds like you believe.

Speaker 2 (19:11):
But you can argue with me if you like. I
believe that's a lie.

Speaker 3 (19:15):
I believe it's a lie from the enemy, that my
body is separate from me, and that I'm not really
accountable to or responsible for or in charge of whatever
that does, and and and so you know, I have
my Christian life and my Christian intentions, and my Christian
mind and my Christian spirit, and and this stupid body

(19:36):
of mine. You know, hopefully when I go to Heaven,
I'm done dealing with that garbage.

Speaker 2 (19:40):
Right.

Speaker 3 (19:41):
I believe that that those things come together and in
it actually was. I did not go to seminary, but
it was very apparent to me when Paul, writing in Ephesian,
said that a husband should love his wife as Christ
loved the Church and gave himself for her, and then

(20:02):
further goes on to say as a part of his
own body. And then he says, and no man ever
hated his own body. And here I am as a
nutrition and exercise scientist of many years, going.

Speaker 2 (20:15):
I, I don't like.

Speaker 3 (20:18):
Arguing with Paul, but like, I've met a lot of
guys who hate their own body, and they might even
say it out loud, But even if they don't say
it out loud, you can see it in their actions,
like showing your food journal, and I will tell you
whether or not you hate your body, not because of
what it looks like, because of what you eat, but
because of how you've decided to care for it today.

Speaker 2 (20:41):
Do I hate my body?

Speaker 3 (20:42):
Well, let's let's look Let's look at how you are
fueling your body. Let's look at how you're nourishing your body.
Let's look at how how you are allowing it to
recover or not based on the food that we're eating.
And so I remember thinking like Paul, I don't know, man,
I don't know. Like if I asked a guy to
love his wife like he loves his body, like I don't,

(21:03):
I wouldn't tell a guy to do that based on
his food journal and exercise program, like, no, please love
her way better than you generally are loving your body.
So I remember thinking this, like, no, there's there's a
separate there's a disconnect between what Paul's saying, and how
we understand body and and that that some of the
roots of love, learning to love others as God loves us,

(21:27):
learning to love others as we are called to love ourselves.
That that there's there's a deep disconnect there. And I
would love one of the things that you're passionate about
is is helping helping Christians understand what it means to
love themselves, not in the way the world does, but

(21:47):
to love themselves full mind, body, spirit, the whole whole package.

Speaker 2 (21:51):
Uh.

Speaker 3 (21:52):
And and how that that impacts and influences development and
and also the the following of Christ. So, so could
you talk a bit about what it looks like to
love ourselves, how is that different from the way the
world means it, and why is the body a part
of that at all?

Speaker 4 (22:10):
Yeah? Yeah, that's so good. Oh And I need to
I need to correct myself because I said the word
for muchness was an adjective. It's an adverb. For those
who are grammar files, I don't want to get scolded by.

Speaker 2 (22:25):
Them the comments on YouTube, it's an adverb.

Speaker 4 (22:29):
You're an adverb. Yeah. Yeah, So my journey into really
understanding the intersection between faith and fitness started back in
twenty seventeen when my doctor at my yearly physical who
is one of my parishioners and I love, gave me

(22:52):
the eyeball to eyeball and said, if you don't make
some changes, you are going to have a stroke before
you're forty.

Speaker 2 (22:59):
Wow.

Speaker 4 (23:00):
And and that woke me up. And I can remember
going from that that time with my doctor to the
parking lot down the street from my home, outside of
the grocery store and just crying my eyes out and
saying to the Lord, you know, I've done everything I

(23:22):
know to do and I can't get anything to stick
to help me lose weight. I was eighty pounds heavier
than than I am today.

Speaker 2 (23:31):
Wow.

Speaker 4 (23:31):
And that's you know, twenty seventeen isn't that far away.
And that really got me on a process of asking
for help first off, and agree of one percent. At
that time in my life, I would tell you that
I had so much shame around my body and how

(23:55):
I felt I looked, and the messages we receive from
culture every day about how a man is supposed to
look right, it's just so destructive and it's a tool
of the enemy. Jesus, Jesus rises again after death in

(24:16):
a full physical body. And it wasn't a different body,
it was his body. It was the same body, but
with scars. Right, that's a we'll get back. And it
was at that point in my life when my wife,
who has always been very athletic, she was really big

(24:40):
into running. Then she had run into this podcast called
Reving the Word by an organization called and what they
do is teach people to love God and love their bodies,
and they train fitness teachers and health coaches to go
out into the world and spread the gospel you using

(25:00):
the tools of our bodies. Because we can't do anything
without these good bodies, right, we cannot. I cannot show
anyone love without my physical body. I can't give somebody
a hug, I can't I can't smile at someone without
making this body part of the process. And really, these

(25:23):
bodies are taking what's invisible and making it visible to them.
And at that time in my life, I couldn't have
told you that. I wouldn't have known. Why do I
have so many problems with this body? And revelation wellness
That podcast, in particular, while I was starting walking, like

(25:44):
let's start walking, let's move up my body in some way,
form or fashion, because at that point I was very inactive.
And I'll say for especially helping people, people who are
in the helping profession and people in Minty in particular,
we have a really hard time taking the time for ourselves.

(26:08):
We're really good at burning the candle at both ends
for the entire world, because there's a lot of messages
that tell us that's what we're supposed to do. And
if it's at the sake of your own physical health,
that's okay. It's a sacrifice for Jesus, and I don't
think that's Jesus model. But I started walking, and I

(26:34):
started listening to this podcast that includes God's Word, reading
scripture over you, coaching you in posture and in how
to engage your core while you're walking or running, getting
your body involved, and having God's spoken over you in

(26:54):
a powerful way. And now I'm listening to something while
I'm moving my body. I'm having God's word spoken on
for me. It's all becoming integrated. And that started to
shift things for me. That that led me into something
that we're also really not good out here in the
United States in particular, is silence and solitude and how
important getting to the quiet place is and letting really,

(27:21):
I think this is where what the key is to
all of this is letting God love me, letting him
love me. Amen, we're so really good at doing things
for him. We're not doing things with him. We're not.
We're not We're not like our savior Jesus getting away

(27:44):
to quiet places to simply be with the Father, to
simply sit with him and listen and let him love us.
And because it's terrifying, we're I'm so used to busy, busy, busy,
and we've been discipled so much by technology these days,

(28:07):
we're so in. We've always got distraction and even I
can I can pick up my Bible and I can
read my Bible, and I can study my Bible, and
that's wonderful. That's very cerebral. I'm not letting him love me.

(28:27):
It's sort of like Facebook stalking, right, a celebrity like
you could say, I'm really good friends for me with
Peyton Manning because I know so many things about him.
I know where his kids get their haircuts, I know
where they go to school. I know where he lives,
I know what car he drives, right, I know all
this stuff about him, but there's zero relationship with him.

(28:49):
If we're not careful as followers of Jesus, we can
know so much about God we don't know him personally.

Speaker 2 (28:59):
That's deeply and very well said.

Speaker 3 (29:01):
And for in my journey, my individual movements, hiking up
a mountain, lifting weights, the actual movement component of exercise
has been a very deep part of spending time with God.

Speaker 2 (29:20):
For me, some of my deepest, most heartfelt prayers.

Speaker 3 (29:25):
The times that scripture comes alive for me is on
a hike through the woods by myself, well not by myself,
I'm hanging out with my father, but that I don't
get that sitting in my living room at the start
of a work day. And don't get me wrong, the
discipline of opening the word and reading it and understanding

(29:50):
or at least doing my best too, is something that
informs that process for me, just like you know, hearing
the podcast for what did you call it?

Speaker 4 (30:00):
Rev Up the word while you're walking, you're moving, and
somebody else is speaking, you know, scripture over you.

Speaker 3 (30:08):
But for my part, and again the reason I wrote
the devotional was because it's like no God's word meets
you in movement. It does, and it's so weird. It's
a hard thing to articulate. I got to say, writing
this devotional has been the hardest thing I've ever done
in my life, because because I can feel it, I
can understand it. But it's really hard to explain to

(30:31):
you what it means to say, because we are surrounded
by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw
all the sin that weighs us down and run with
endurance the race that God has set before us at
pursuing Jesus, the author and finish of our faith.

Speaker 2 (30:49):
That's that is in Hebrews. Right.

Speaker 3 (30:51):
It's it's hard. It's hard to articulate what that feels like.

Speaker 2 (30:55):
While I'm running. Like I'm running, that.

Speaker 3 (30:59):
Verse that scripture comes to mind and heart, and I'm
reminded of the difficult race I'm running in my life.

Speaker 2 (31:05):
I'm reminded of the times I want to give up.

Speaker 3 (31:07):
I'm reminded of all the people who love me and
want to see want to see God's good work done
in my life. And I'm also reminded of the stupid
things I've done that are regularly in opposition to that
thing that weigh me down. Right, And I'm running, and
then then I'm crying. I'm like cry running, you know,
poor people in Greenbrier are driving by me, Like, what's

(31:28):
going on with Alex.

Speaker 2 (31:29):
Don't worry about it. It's time with my father. We'll
be all right.

Speaker 3 (31:33):
But that is, that is a hard thing to articulate,
that there is something to be said about when scripture
and the movement of our body and the love of
God all hit us all at.

Speaker 2 (31:45):
The same time. That's healing.

Speaker 3 (31:48):
That's good, that's motivating and inspiring. That honestly is just
good because it is. And if you know, for my part,
I work with a lot of people who don't like
to exercise. Yeah, when this starts happening, you start to
really like exercise. You start to notice that you're not
the same person without it, that there's a process and

(32:12):
progress to that whole thing. I wonder if I said
a lot of things there, if you have something to add,
I'd love to hear that. And then I have a
question for you.

Speaker 4 (32:20):
Yeah, there's something. I mean, we can see in all
of the data that something happens when we move our
bodies that engages our mind, our will and emotions. Right,
it's everything is interconnected again. We are we are interconnected beings,
and we try to dissociate those things from one another,

(32:41):
and that's a wrong and be unhelpful. And see it's
to make it. To get us back to where we're
supposed to be requires movement, and even in trauma therapy
and care, one of the biggest ways that healing starts

(33:02):
to happen is when people move. And you see it
in fitness. I don't know why I'm crying. I'm you know,
I'm punching a punching bag, or I'm lifting weights, or
I'm pounding drumsticks on the floor and I'm crying. I'm
having an emotional reaction that I don't know why is
this happening? Well, there's your good body is holding bad news, right.

(33:27):
It's the things that have been done to us, the
things we've done to ourselves. Right, it all hangs out
in my body. I carry it with me everywhere I go.
And when I start to move, and now we're talking
about the science of movement, right, which all truth is
God's truth, we start moving that stuff out of us.

(33:52):
Like when I experience stress, high stress during an intense experience,
whether that's a car accident or verbal abuse that I
received at the hands of somebody, or physical abuse I
received at the hands of somebody. My body's producing all
kinds of chemicals, some of which are damaging if they

(34:13):
just hang out in my body, right like cortisol. If
it stays there for too long, it starts creating chronic
inflammation in the whole system. Because that stuff was meant
to move me. It was meant to get me to
do something. It's a gift from God. But when I

(34:33):
don't move, it gets stuck. And the messages I receive
about who I am and who the world says I am,
they get stuck in my body. The messages of shame
and isolation and helplessness, all of those things, they get
stuck in my body, and it's not telling me the truth.
And really, for me, that's where my weight gain and

(34:56):
my physical lack of physical fitness that was. It was
all coming from messages I had received that I didn't
even know I had been receiving. And so in some
ways I could tell you at that even at that time,
I believe God loves me. I believe it. I could
give cognitive assent to that. And yet there were parts

(35:21):
of me that had never experienced that love and to
experience that love required me to do something, whether that
was was hiking, because I, like you, man, do I
encounter Jesus in creation like hiking the Grand Canyon or

(35:41):
some of the mountains here in Denver. Man, just getting
out into sunshine and hearing the birds and smelling the
trees and the dirt. I'm meeting with God in creation
while I move my body and learning to meet him
in silence and solitude. That's that rest and recovery that
comes right because we need that spiritually as well as

(36:03):
physically and all things silence and solitude does for our
brain too. Allows me to actually experience in my body
the love that my Creator has for me.

Speaker 2 (36:17):
Mm hmm.

Speaker 4 (36:19):
I think that answered the question.

Speaker 2 (36:20):
So yeah, yeah, no, that's that's that's awesome.

Speaker 3 (36:22):
And I think of you know, I work with with
a lot of individuals, both from a ministerial perspective but
also from an exercise and nutrition perspective, and I'll hear
sometimes I know God's there, but I don't feel him
something like that. And you know that that might sound
kind of frue fruit of some individuals, but but for
but for somebody who's really seeking after God and needs

(36:45):
needs to hear him, needs to see him, needs needs
the Kingdom to break through in a powerful way in
their life, and even non narcissistically, just just as a
as an experience that that oftentimes I with this individual,
I'll be like, all right, I'll meet you here, we're
gonna be fasted, let's go. And in every single time,

(37:06):
every single time we get out in nature, every single
time we have the opportunity to experience His creation, then
the person experiences God, even if they don't have a
particularly tight connection to that, right And and that's for me,
that's always profoundly important that that you know, we we

(37:26):
didn't exist.

Speaker 2 (37:27):
I'm in a garage gym right now.

Speaker 3 (37:29):
Yeah, Abraham would not have understood any any of our
experiences here, air conditioning, running water, you know, you know
that's but but Abraham had a tight connection with God.
He knew who God was, he knew what God wanted
from him.

Speaker 2 (37:47):
He walked that path.

Speaker 3 (37:49):
He made some of his own mistakes, right, but he
walked with him. And I think that's an interesting thing too,
is that the scriptural account of a connection with God
is usually depicted as a walk.

Speaker 2 (37:58):
I'm walking with God. Uh, Enoch walked with God. And
was no more.

Speaker 3 (38:03):
Christ describes the pathway to life as the narrow way, right.
The idea that there's this trail, this path, that that
you get to move.

Speaker 2 (38:13):
On is powerful and throughout scripture.

Speaker 3 (38:17):
But I did want to address a word because I've
said it a couple of times. You've said it a
couple of times. But I want to address this word,
and I want to address it by by explaining a concept.
And that is when when I work in the health
and fitness world, I see two ends of a spectrum
in in fitness from a worldly perspective, I see the
lack of it, right, the deconditioned, nutritionally deprived, you know,

(38:42):
driven by a bunch of different things. I see that
end of the spectrum of fitness. And then I see
the end of the spectrum of fitness where it's look
how look how great I look? And look how much
weight I can move? And and look how look how
athletic I am? Right, and and biblically speaking, the seven
deadly sins are not really a thing, but but people

(39:03):
on that right, And I think of the two ends
of the spectrum of fitness as as on one end
we've got we've got gluttony and sloth. Right, Oh, gluttony,
that's scary word. Yeah, yeah, we still do that in
church some reason. We get for the alcoholics a hard time.
But the guy is eating the seventh donut. You know,
we're gonna let him pass as long as there's coffee
with it.

Speaker 2 (39:24):
I'm kidding, but.

Speaker 3 (39:25):
I know there's that end of the spectrum, right, gluttony
and sloth Like food in my life has become its
own idol. Or I've become acquainted and comfortable within action,
and so I'm not going to challenge myself.

Speaker 2 (39:39):
I don't like that feeling. I don't want to do that.

Speaker 3 (39:41):
Right, there's there's one in one end of the spectrum
of fitness there and then on the other end of
the spectrum of fitness, it's it's the uh, the pride
and envy, right, and and pride being like, look how
great I am, Look at my six pack ads, look
at my split biceps, Look how heavy away I can move?
Or or I want to be just like I don't

(40:03):
know the rock is that an old actor?

Speaker 2 (40:06):
I don't know.

Speaker 3 (40:06):
I have a hard time referencing Hollywood here because I
don't know how young or old people are.

Speaker 2 (40:13):
I want to be like ex celebrity.

Speaker 3 (40:15):
And I'm pursuing that, look, you know, because because that
will feel good to me somewhere in the middle, and
and that's how that's how the Christian walk is somewhere
in the middle. Stewardship. And I've said that word. You've
said that word. What I mean by stewardship is this
body I have. I have some control over, not a lot,

(40:39):
but some, you know, And and I have some decisions
to make with it on a daily basis. I've been
given it for a reason, but ultimately it's God. God
gave it to me, and I have a certain amount
of time with it here on earth. And what happens
after that, I'm not sure we can say something scripturally speaking,
but but I have this thing. Just like Jesus said

(41:00):
about the men who are given talents by their Master,
He's given them talents for a period of time. And
the question is what did you do with those things?

Speaker 2 (41:10):
What?

Speaker 3 (41:11):
What did you How did you steward those things? And
so and so in the middle of this sin spectrum
of fitness, there's stewardship. And we've talked a bit about
what the core beliefs in that are. My everything's integrated.
I'm all one. God loves me. He made me this
way for a reason. He didn't give me a meat
sack that he hated, you know, like to wrestle with.

(41:34):
But that there is this idea in the middle that
I've been given this body, and I get the opportunity,
I have the responsibility to make the most.

Speaker 2 (41:46):
Of this thing.

Speaker 3 (41:47):
And so so that's my definition of stewardship, and that's
the definition I operate with when I speak that I
don't own it, I steward it. In your mind, when
it comes to health and fitness, what does stewardship mean
to you? And if you have any comments about the
the spectrum of fitness, we can talk about that too.
But I was I was curious about your thoughts there.

Speaker 4 (42:10):
Yeah, I one hundred percent agree that we we live
in a culture that well of polarizing and endpoints right.
So it's obsession and neglect are the two sort of sides.
It's like it's over, I'm a neglect and and and
Christ always brings us back to the middle right where

(42:32):
He's standing. And I think some of this goes back
to even even that idea of image. What what does
it mean to be created in the image of God.
And in that word that is used salem in Hebrew
for image, it's the same same word that we would
use of an image that an ancient ruler set up

(42:55):
in a distant part of his kingdom, right, that that
image represents him, that represented that ruler. And in some
cases the people who live there wouldn't have even said
it's just a representation. It's a it's a physical expression
in reality of who this person is in their rulership,

(43:17):
in their dominion over this space. It shows that this
ruler reigns here. Yes, and in a very I mean
it's the same word used of us creating the image
of God, the very image of God, Jesus creating the

(43:39):
very image of God. Right, he was the very image
and nature in very nature God. It's that same word.
It's a lem and And there's something that we need
to take away from that we were created to show
all creation who rules and reigns to represent him. I mean,

(44:00):
that's a high calling, very right, and it should a
humble me, right, it should humble me that it's it's
not about me, it's about him. It's about the creator himself.
And it should also give me this unshakable confidence that
I've been made by him and for him to represent him,

(44:22):
like he's given me authority in relationship with him, to
display his character to the world, Like that's so freaking cool.
And that includes this physical body. I think part of
the problem is we assume that the image of God
is only non physical. I don't think that's the case

(44:47):
at all. I think I think there's because what did
Moses see right when God passed by? He saw something?
And now God himself carries a human body in g
Esus Christ right, who is the eternal second person of
the Godhead. So there is something to be said there,

(45:08):
which is why I think Paul would say, whether you
eat or drink, do it to the glory of God.
In all your actions and interactions using this body, you
are showing the world something of who he is, whether
that's accurate or inaccurate. And even that word fit, we

(45:29):
use that word fitness, which can can feel shaming to
some people. I don't feel fit. I don't feel like
because we have this false image in our head, we
have to look like Dwayne Johnson right to be fit,
or Chris Evans with his shirt off when he hasn't
had any water to drink for twenty four hours. Right,
Like that word fit means that you are suitable for

(45:52):
a purpose, suitably made for a purpose, as in this
bucket is fit to carry the water, right or or
this computer is fit to hold a zoom meeting on
m It's not. It's not something that the computer like
thought about and worried about and and was like obsessed about,

(46:13):
Like I got to have these great microchips, right, like
work the processors. Like that's important. It's absolutely important to
to care about my muscles, but not in an obsessive way.
Not to It's not for vanity, it's for ability. It's
for ability. Am I am I a suitable vessel stewarding

(46:39):
the presence of God that lives in me by His
Holy Spirit, who in dwells me as his temple, which
which is a temple, is made for worship, Like I
should be worshiping God with my body, because I think
that's really what stewardship comes down to, is it's about

(47:00):
what I'm worshiping?

Speaker 2 (47:02):
Amen?

Speaker 4 (47:03):
Am I worshiping God with my body? Am I worshiping
God with my heart? Am I worshiping Him with my spirit?
My mind? Or? Or are there parts of me that
I'm holding back from him are there. And I don't
mean that even necessarily in a wilful, disobedient holding back
from him. But in some ways I hold parts of

(47:23):
me back from him because I'm too scared to let
him in when really what he wants to do, because
really I'm scared of what he might reveal. Right, Shame
is always going to push me to hide, yep, And
whether that's something I've done or something that's been done
to me. And the biggest tool that enemy has is

(47:47):
shame because it causes us to pull away and isolate.
And what my good father wants to do is open
things up, reveal the broken pieces and parts of me
so he can heal them, which again continues to make

(48:08):
me a better vessel for stewarding his goodness and his
glory and his love and sharing it with the world.
And I will say that from from for me like
the biggest the biggest difference in my physical both my
weight and my fitness, has been letting Jesus into those

(48:28):
darker parts of my story that I'm scared or I'm
not even aware of until he brings it up. You
talked about that the ugly cry while you're running. Like
you know, I can remember the first time I experienced that.
It was just after a big group fitness experience and

(48:48):
the person leading the experience led us in some silent
reflection in prayer time, and man, I had an encounter
with the Lord that blew my mind and shook my
world in the most beautiful way, like the ugly cry
that then turned into a deep belly laugh because I

(49:09):
experienced the very presence of my heavenly Father and loving
the hell out of me literally, right, literally, yeah, yeah,
So stewardship Really, it's going back to worship. It's going
back to worship. And where is my value being placed?
Where is my identity being found? Is it being found

(49:31):
in my six pack ads which I don't have? Is
it being found in Is it being found in my hairline? Right?
I mean that is it? Where is it being found?
Is it being found in Christ? Because if it is,
then how I behave, which is my physical body? How
I behave will follow.

Speaker 3 (49:53):
I As you were speaking there. One of the things
I I've meditated on and spent time on is is
we call it communion some denomination see it as a
sacrament or an activity or practice, and theologically, I I
don't want to cross any wires or mess anybody's mind

(50:14):
up on this front. But there was something Jesus said
when he was breaking the bread and drinking the wine
with his disciples in the Last Supper. So in the
night he was betrayed. He took the bread and he
broke it, and he said, this is my body. It
would be broken for you. As often as you eat
of it, do so in remembrance of me. And he
did the same thing with the cup. He said, this
is my blood. We pour it out as a ransom

(50:36):
for many, and with it, I'm bringing a new covenant.
As often as you drink of it, do so in
remembrance of me. And as Christians, this is you know,
depending on your denominational bent and stuff, this is something
that you might come together as a congregation and do.
You might do it often, you might do it infrequently.
It might be on special occasions or whatever. But from
a nutritional perspective, there's so much nutrition advice in the world.

(51:02):
And you know, I don't know your whole story. You
haven't sat down and told me over coffee, But I
know that if you're eighty pounds overweight. There is all
kinds of dietary advice that's been thrown at you and
that you probably tried right and either implemented and failed
at miserably, or it worked for a little while and
then it didn't right. But I wanted to speak to

(51:22):
the person listening who is like, Okay, I do want
to glorify God with my body. I'm not exactly sure
where to start. There's a lot of conflicting evidence and
information and stuff out there right that when I start
asking for help, it comes not necessarily in a godly fashion,
but in a worldly fashion.

Speaker 2 (51:41):
And so I've tried a lot of things.

Speaker 3 (51:43):
I wanted to say out loud that from a nutritional perspective,
there's a lot of information out in the world about
nutrition science. But ultimately what it comes down to is Lord,
teach me how to feed myself well, and the Holy
Spirit can help you learn how to do that.

Speaker 2 (52:00):
There's there's definitely some science to the whole thing.

Speaker 3 (52:02):
There's definitely well traveled roads that could guide you along
the narrow way of nutrition and our abundant and hyper
palatable world. There's there's all that, right, but there is
this idea, and this is central to my my coaching practice.
As often as I eat, as often as I take
food in, as often as I take drink, And how

(52:23):
do I do that in remembrance of Christ? Like like
Paul said, whether you eat, whether you drink, do it, do.

Speaker 2 (52:29):
It to the glory of God.

Speaker 3 (52:31):
And I wanted to invite listeners if you haven't already
started this practice, to pray over your food before you eat,
not because of what you know your grandpa told you about.

Speaker 2 (52:40):
You'll have a stomach ache if you don't.

Speaker 3 (52:43):
But but you have the opportunity to remember Christ, thank
God for the provision He's given you, but also to
make a decision was this right?

Speaker 2 (52:51):
Is this what I need to be eating right now?
Is this is this good for me? Is this for
your glory?

Speaker 3 (52:57):
Or do I know somewhere deep down that this was
not going to be beneficial and not going to be positive?
And so I say that out loud to say there
are individuals who are listening to this who might have
a hard time knowing where to start. And I know,
like in your world, from a pastor's perspective but also

(53:19):
from a coach's perspective, you help people to start. So
either from your personal experience or from the experience of
working with individuals. I described one way we might start
from a nutritional perspective to bower head and give it
to God and ask, you know, Lord, show me show
me how to remember you well in my food. How

(53:41):
do you help individuals get started? Or what's something that
comes to heart and mind for you, for that listener
who's ready to integrate mind and body and start pursuing
God's will for their body and stewardship.

Speaker 2 (53:55):
What's that look like for you?

Speaker 4 (53:58):
Yeah, there's so many different routes I could take there.
I mean one one is it starts small, right, because
I love when when the Lord says in in zeph
and Iah, he says, do not despise the day of
small things. Yeah, small beginnings, right, A great a seed

(54:23):
the side of the size of a mustard seed becomes
this big plant. He says that the Kingdom of Heaven
is like a mustard seed, this tiny thing. It's like yeast.
It's this tiny thing that can spread throughout. Start small,
like there is like we all we all think we've
got to become something really fast. But you know, everything
that that becomes sustainable is something that started small and

(54:47):
was built upon right, So go for a walk, a
five minute walk, right, ten minute walk after a meal, Like,
I think what you said is so important to because
we don't stop, we don't take time to process. Okay,
what am I gonna eat? Why am I eating it?

(55:11):
It takes too much effort. And our culture is trying
to get us to move fast all the time. And
that's why we need fast food. Right because we're always
moving so fast, I don't have time. We've got to
create space for slowing down. And that includes praying before
we eat. Or it's I'm gonna go for a ten
minute walk after I eat. I mean so many good

(55:33):
things happen because of a walk in my body chemically, right,
Like we're lowering, lowering a one C right there. Just
go for a walk or or start with I'm going
to keep a water bottle on my table or in
the car or whatever, and I'm gonna when it's empty,
i'm gonna refill it. I'm gonna drink it. Right, start

(55:54):
with water. So many of us are hungry because we're thirsty.
We don't we don't know that hunger is being or
thirst is being masked as hunger. And if I were
to increase my hydration. I actually might find I'm not
as hungry as I thought I was. So starting with
hydration or starting with a small movement, just it doesn't

(56:18):
have to take a lot, right Or what's one thing
I can change in my diet right now, Like instead
of potato chips, I'm gonna have carrots. Just change that
one thing and see how you feel, right, pay attention
to how you feel again, it's the small things are

(56:40):
the things that lead to great change.

Speaker 2 (56:43):
Very well said.

Speaker 3 (56:44):
And I also like to point listeners toward There's a
link in the show notes to Revelation Wellness as YouTube
channel and Revelation Wellness as resources online because that's where
you started, right, That's the place where where you heard
a podcast and words were spoken over you. And there's
there's opportunities within there to be connected in community.

Speaker 2 (57:08):
Here's the thing about being a Christian.

Speaker 3 (57:10):
You think, because because solitude is good and studying scripture
is good, you think.

Speaker 2 (57:15):
This is this is between you and God, and it is.

Speaker 3 (57:18):
But God also teaches us through his word not to
forsake gathering together as some are in the habit of
doing that, that that we we come together and are connected.
Think a zebra. Zebras are not camouflaged against the grass lands.
They stick out like a sore thumb. Right, they're white
and black, they're white. Are they white with black stripes

(57:40):
or black with white that's a that's a that's a
fun question for God when we get to heaven. But anyway, so,
so zebras are not camouflaged to the grasslands to protect
them from lions. And the scripture tells us that that
the enemy roams about like a hungry lion, seeking whom
he might devour. Do you know who is zebra is
camouflaged against others zebras. When you've got a bunch of

(58:00):
black and white striped zebras running together, they.

Speaker 2 (58:03):
Don't get eaten so easily.

Speaker 3 (58:05):
Right, And in the same way, if you're just starting
on this health and fitness journey, getting connected in community,
even if it's virtual, even if it's a virtual community,
being connected with a friend who's going to walk with you,
with somebody who's also making some changes to the nutrition,
with a community of people who are speaking scripture over
you while you're exercising on YouTube, you know, like in

(58:27):
your living room. Being connected in that way, you don't
have to do this thing alone. You can try, but
it'd be a lot better if you didn't. So I
would love for you to have the opportunity to speak
into that, and then I would also like to pray
over you and your ministry.

Speaker 4 (58:43):
Wess, thank you. Yeah, yeah, I would. I would say
that the word that Paul uses again, it's we live
in such an individualistic culture that we see everything every
you in scripture as me, oh you're talking to me.
But the word that Paul uses when he says you

(59:05):
is really all y'all, all y'all in all y'all.

Speaker 2 (59:12):
Like you're from Indiana. Man, I didn't know you heard
the all y'alls, right.

Speaker 4 (59:17):
It's like, so when he says you, do you not
know that you are the temple of the Holy spirits?
Do you not know that all y'all together are the
temple of the Holy Spirit? Individual and it's collective and
we need one another. We were made for each other.
And and that's another tool of the enemy to isolate us, right,

(59:38):
because he knows that he can isolate us. Man, we're
just in such danger. We're in such danger as isolated
individuals like that zebra all by itself. Yeah, And in Revelation,
wellness is a community where you are invited, as you
are to come and learn right, to come and be

(59:59):
together as we learn how to love God and love
our bodies and using these bodies as the primary tool
by which God calls us to spread the gospel to
love people well. And we do that by people encountering
the transformational love of Jesus through deep spiritual healing and

(01:00:20):
physical health practices. That's how we do it. And we've
got a ton of free resources on the website for you,
and you are invited to come. We also do a
training every year teaching health coaches. So we train health
coaches and we train fitness teachers. We call them fitness
teacher gospel preachers, and that's another avenue of we do

(01:00:46):
deep discipleship on these very conversations that Alex and I
are having, and it's been transformational for me for sure.
So yeah, you're invited.

Speaker 3 (01:00:56):
Awesome, awesome, Thank you for that, brother, And close down
every one of my interviews here by praying over the
individual I'm interviewing and their ministry. So if you would
bow your head with me so I can pray over you,
Father God, thank you so much for this day. Thank
you for the time I get to spend with my
brother Wes, and thank you for the good work that
you've done in his life and continue to do through

(01:01:17):
his church and through his family. Lord, I pray a
special blessing over him and his body and his mind,
all of the parts integrated together, that he will steward
them well for your kingdom, and that every person that
he touches is blessed to do the same. I also
pray Lord for the listeners in this podcast. God, I

(01:01:40):
pray that if one person is listening here who has
separated their mind and their body and they don't understand
your love or feel your love, Lord, I pray that
you will reveal yourself to them in a way that
they can understand and in a way that changes them forever. God,
let us not be individuals who do this thing alone,

(01:02:03):
or who are prone to self worship or self neglect.
Teach us to follow You mind, body, and spirit and
Jesus name.

Speaker 2 (01:02:13):
Amen.

Speaker 3 (01:02:15):
Amen, Wes, thank you so much for your time and energy,
And to the listeners, guys, you know what I'm about
to say next. This has been coach Alex Van Houghton
on The Faithful Fitness Podcast. Until next time, Train hard,
but pray harder.

Speaker 1 (01:02:31):
Hey, if this episode helped you, jare it with someone
who needs to hear it, and don't forget to subscribe
and leave us a raving review so more people can
find faithful fitness. Oh and my dad's new devotional is
almost out now. You can grab a copy for yourself
and then join our free community at Better Daily by

(01:02:54):
clicking on the links in the show notes below. We
all have a cross to carry, but it slider when
we do it together, so check out both links in
the show notes. Don't be a big well Bob, just
do it until next time. Don't forget, Train hard, and
pray even harder.

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