Loosen Your Grip

Photo by Iain Robertson on Unsplash; edited by Kris Hutchinson in Canva

A little over a year ago, my wife and I started CrossFit, and it has been a really good thing for me personally. It has had its share of ups and downs, though.

One of the biggest challenges for me has been determining the right weight for workouts. Sometimes I look at the prescribed weight and know I can lift it.

The issue is not whether I can lift it or not, but whether I can lift that weight, that many times, combined with the other exercises, and within the time frame.

The other day, there was a workout that included front squats, which is one of my favorite exercises, and I looked at the weight.

Again, I knew I could do the weight, and I only needed to do it four times. And I was able to do it.

After the workout, another member and I were talking about it, and we got into a conversation about grips. Grips are very important in weightlifting and CrossFit.

He mentioned that sometimes muscles get fatigued not because of the weight itself, but because your grip is not strong enough and have to compensate. I had never thought about that before.

When the weight gets heavier, the grip needs to improve. It needs to tighten up. Many athletes even wear grips for pull-ups and add chalk to Olympic lifts to improve their grip.

And that is a common idea in our world today. We use phrases like "hold on tight" when we're going too fast or taking a sharp turn. We even use the phrase "get a grip," implying that we need to focus or pull ourselves together.

But as believers in Jesus Christ, we are often called to do the exact opposite. We are called to loosen our grip on life and the things of this world.

In 2 Corinthians 8:2, Paul writes, "In the midst of a very severe trial, their overflowing joy and their extreme poverty welled up in rich generosity."

Paul is describing the Macedonian believers. Even though they were dealing with adversity and did not have many resources, they cheerfully and willingly gave what they had to help the believers in Jerusalem. Paul uses their example to encourage the Corinthians to do the same, especially since they had already committed to do so.

Paul challenges the believers in Corinth, despite the conflicts they had experienced and the challenges they were facing, to open their hands.

That is a great challenge for all of us as well.

We should not live generously out of obligation or guilt. We should live generously out of gratitude, remembering that we are stewards of God's provision and blessings. Everything we have ultimately belongs to Him.

Life brings plenty of challenges, and our natural instinct is to tense up and tighten our grip, literally and metaphorically. We want more control. We want more certainty. We want to protect what is ours.

Yet followers of Jesus are called to live with open hands, trusting that God is our provider and that what we have is not really ours anyway.

So let me ask you:

What are you holding onto too tightly?

What would it look like to trust God enough to loosen your grip this week?

Maybe it is your finances. Maybe it is your plans. Maybe it is a relationship, a worry, a disappointment, or even a dream.

Whatever it is, ask God to help you open your hands and trust Him more fully. You may discover that the tighter your grip becomes, the harder it is to receive what He wants to place in your hands.

Anyway, I was just thinking...