All the contestants were obese. They all needed to lose over 100 pounds.
They had each reached the point of realizing they could not do this alone. They could not lead themselves into their new self. They needed the help of another.
One young man was committed to follow the lead of his personal trainer and do what needed to be done to drop the weight he wanted to drop. His trainer was passionately engaged to help this man accomplish his goal. The trainer would lead his large trainee in numerous creative activities to keep the regimen alive with variety. But no matter how creative the program, it was still a discouragingly difficult process.
On this particular show the trainer decided to up the motivation level and arranged a training time with 2 NFL players. These professional athletes were intent on helping this man push through his limitations to accomplish more than he thought he could. His limitations were more mental than physical. Sure, his size created some limitations, but they were not nearly as mountainous as the mental limitations he put on himself.
As the NFL players did everything they could to motivate this man to push himself beyond his self-imposed limitations, one of them said something I will not soon forget:
“All it takes is all you’ve got.”
This was his exhortation to be wholehearted. Give the task at hand everything you’ve got.
That can be a very tough thing to do when our self-imposed limitations have kept us from realizing all that we’ve got. In actuality we probably have no idea all we’ve got. If we are leading ourselves we will always stop short of all we’ve got, because we don’t have anyone pushing us beyond what we believe we are capable of.
The only way we will ever discover “all we’ve got” is if we trust someone else to lead us further than we think possible. When we are at the end of our rope we need the voice of another to help us see we can go further.
Someone on our Band of Brothers Boot Camp team asked the question this week if we were doing everything we could to promote the boot camp in November. My first thought was to list off in my mind all that I had done to promote the camp – basically to justify myself:
“Sure, I’ve done a lot. I’ve been doing this for 10 years. You have no idea all I’ve done. It’s tough leading men…”
However, if a crazed madman took my family hostage and threatened to kill them all if we didn’t have 200 men at the camp, I guarantee I would work far more diligently to promote the event.
So what does that say?
I believe to give all that we have to give, we need the input of another, someone to push us on. (Hopefully not a crazed madman.) We need the voice of another encouraging, exhorting and cajoling us onward. And the only way we will experience that is if we choose to submit to the input of another: if we choose humility.
Again, we don’t know what we are capable of until someone pushes us beyond our self-imposed limitations. And that can be very uncomfortable, yet very liberating at the same time. We break free into new freedom, new faith, new hope, new life, new strength.
In Nehemiah, the people were able to do far more than they ever expected because they followed God’s lead through Nehemiah and worked with “all their heart”. That’s wholeheartedness.
If you feel stuck; if you feel like you are at the end of your rope; even if you feel like you are doing OK and tracking well; I believe you are capable of far more. And God wants to do more in you and through you. However, you will never know all you’ve got until you invite someone to help you give all you’ve got.
We have what it takes, but it takes all we’ve got. We have 3 choices: give up, give in, or give it all we’ve got.
To appropriate God’s best in us and through us takes wholehearted commitment and the input of another. Yes, all it takes is all we’ve got.
He is worth our effort.
Nehemiah 4:6
“So we rebuilt the wall till all of it reached half its height, for the people worked with all their heart.”
2 Peter 1:5-7
“For this very reason, make every effort to add to your faith goodness; and to goodness, knowledge; and to knowledge, self-control; and to self-control, perseverance; and to perseverance, godliness; and to godliness, mutual affection; and to mutual affection, love.”
Philippians 3:12-14
“Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already arrived at my goal, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.”