Good evening brethren and Happy Sabbath!  Just a reminder we will have a potluck in all three congregations tomorrow. In addition, we will have a sermon discussion after services in Hickory.

Cool Down

I typically like to work out three days a week first thing in the morning.  I normally do cardio and then weightlifting for about a half an hour. When my workout is done, I typically go for a short walk through the neighborhood. Experts say this ‘cool down walk’ provides many benefits, post workout.

The walk serves two purposes: The first is physiological.  After working out, your heart rate is elevated, your breathing is increased and you often feel hot and sweaty.  Studies have shown that a short walk can help ease your heart rate and breathing down to a normal range, which they say is better for you.  It also gives your body time to stop sweating, making showering and changing into fresh clothes a more pleasant process.

More than one way to work out

The secondary purpose of the walk, at least for me, is a mental cooldown.  As I work out and my heart begins to work faster, my brain does too.  I start analyzing the issues of the day and strategizing how to handle them.  At the end of the workout, my heart usually isn’t the only thing racing. By the time my workout is through, I need a few minutes to reign in my brain.

That’s where the secondary benefit of my cool down walk comes in.  It gives me a few minutes to organize all those thoughts running around in my head, and lay out a plan to work through them the rest of the day.

Keeping a good balance

Spiritually speaking, most of the time the challenge isn’t cooling down, it’s getting warmed up.  If we’re not careful, we can let apathy set in and neglect our prayer and Bible study.

While we must be on guard against a lackluster approach to our relationship with God, we need to recognize that sometimes we can allow ourselves to get overwhelmed with all of the “What if?”, and “What about?” and “I wonder if God…”  There’s no end to the number of questions we have that the Bible simply doesn’t provide answers for.  In times like these, take a deep breath, ‘cool down’ and focus on what you can know.  

Solomon put it this way, “The words of the wise are like goads, and the words of [a]scholars are like well-driven nails, given by one Shepherd. And further, my son, be admonished by these. Of making many books there is no end, and much study is wearisome to the flesh. Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God and keep His commandments, for this is man’s all” (Ecclesiastes 12:11-13 NKJV).

If you find your mind beginning to race with questions that the Bible simply doesn’t answer, remember Solomon’s sound advice: “Fear God and keep His commandments.”