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Writer's pictureSam Eaton

Yes, You Can Overcome Anything!

The sweet aroma of fresh vomit wafted throughout the already pungent gym air as I sat huddled over a small black office trash can.

It was 2011 and I had just joined my local Lifetime Fitness and barely survived my “not mandatory but I’ll put you down for Monday” free personal training session.

Throughout my four years of college, I, like many people, started about fifteen different workout routines and stuck to one… two… none of them. Looking back I can see one big underlying problem with my poorly executed workout fads: a deep-rooted belief that I couldn’t do it.

As I sat back up and wiped the lingering throw-up liquid from my face, several steroid junkies sneered in my direction. I HAD to stick to this. I HAD to change. I had spent too many years attempting to move the mountain with no success. Now, equipped with the proper workout routine and my new fitness navigator “Chad,” I was sure to succeed.

“I had spent too many years attempting to move the mountain with no success.”

Spoiler alert: I failed. I did great for a few weeks and then stopped. And failed again. I started a great running routine and then stopped.

Fail, fail, fail, fail, fail, fail, fail.

Fail.

Yet, one thing had drastically changed since college – my attitude. This time I was insanely resolved to keep getting up every time I dropped a barbell on my foot or loudly slipped off the pull-up bar (two things that definitely never happened to me). This time, I stared up at the mountain and, while majorly out of breath, sprinted past my fear.

Yes, You Can Do(1)

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Within five minutes of turning on any Christian radio station, you’re almost guaranteed to hear a cliché hook over a happy I, IV, V progression about those “mountains you can move”.  But have you ever thought about what it would actually take to move a freakin’ mountain? Jesus told his closest friends:

“Truly I tell you, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you.” Matthew  17:20

A mustard seed of faith isn’t actually much faith at all. According to Barnes notes on the bible, at this time a mustard seed was widely known as one of the smallest of all seeds.

Like poppy-seed sized.

Like a miniscule black speck.

Yet, Jesus doesn’t say your faith must be larger than the mountain to move it (which mathematically might make more sense). He says  something 1 gazillionth the size has a greater force than the enormous mass of the mountain. The secret to moving the mountain?

Believing it is possible.

You have to decide that whatever you’re up against “ain’t no thang” to a God who created the earth and raised Jesus from the dead.  Adopt an attitude that says I might not understand this struggle, but I trust in my savior to help me every step of the way. With that belief and the tiniest leap of faith, truly “nothing will be impossible for you.”

“Adopt an attitude that says I might not understand why things happen, but I trust in my savior to help me every step of the way.”

What mountain are you staring up at this week? A mountain of debt? An addiction you can’t shake? A circumstance you feel will never change?

Resolve to never give up. Decide to believe that you can do it despite what anyone says. Wipe the vomit of failure from your mouth and set small, obtainable goals that will help you on your journey. Never stop believing that God is with you at base camp and he will be there celebrating with you at the peak.

Despite my years and years of fitness failure, I finished my first marathon in October. At mile 21, I was in crazy amounts of pain from a foot injury and I could barely move my legs due to the cold. A medic put her arm around me and asked if I wanted to stop. “Do you want us to take you on the golf cart to the medic tent?”

I looked at her, almost crying. I thought for a moment and said, “No way. I’m not giving up.”

Yes, you can overcome anything!

It’s only a mountain. Tell it to move.

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