I became a Christian at the age of six, which was around the same time I first stepped foot on a wrestling mat. So it’s fair to say that wrestling has been a part of my life for as long as my faith has been. Though, of course, while my journey as a competitor in the sport ceased in my young twenties, my faith journey continued.
A few years ago, when I was preparing the marketing strategy for the first edition of Faith and Wrestling, I decided to put together a promotional video. This video required me to put on my wrestling shoes and go toe-to-toe with four-time Division I All-American and national champion, Jayson Ness: a wrestling marvel (him) versus a wrestling dropout (me). As you read earlier, his story is included in this book. He wanted to be a part of promoting it, and agreed to help in the form of pummeling me in front of a camera.
A couple weeks before shooting the video, I grew a bit concerned about walking into a wrestling encounter with Jayson as my first experience back on the mat. So, thinking it would help, I decided to try and get the “rust” out by joining a wrestling practice at my high school alma mater: Apple Valley. Perhaps rolling on the mat with some high school kids would be a good warm-up to my encounter with Jayson (or so I thought). To my surprise, “who” I was wrestling didn’t matter all that much. Within minutes of the practice my body began to feel the incredible aches and pains of fatigue. I remembered the hard way that wrestling forces you to use muscles you didn’t know you had. And when muscles go a long period of time with no use, they grow tired rather quickly. The truth is that it was embarrassing. The truth is that I was having difficulty standing, let alone successfully exerting my will upon my high school opponents. Sure, my brief college wrestling experience helped me overcome them and maintain control; but in order to do so I had to move past fatigue, and stare straight into the eyes of death. I obviously wasn’t dying in the literal sense of the word, but it was enough for me to feel as if my lungs would collapse and my heart would stop beating at any second. Nonetheless, I survived. But the experience, on a personal level, was debilitating.
When I consider this, I can’t help but see the fatigue I experienced in the wrestling room as a metaphor for the fatigue experienced within the subject of faith. Whether a new Christian, or someone returning to the faith after a leave of absence, people develop spiritual fatigue. I think a part of this has to do with a misplacement of focus, or a misunderstanding or forgetfulness of the message that awakened their spirit to faith in the first place. Much of the time, there is a clear understanding of the relational composition. That is, most Christians seem to have a grasp of where they stand as God’s creation. They recognize that God is Creator, and that through their embrace of Jesus the relational gap between them and God is mediated and overcome. What they might not understand, however, is what to do after this submission and relational embrace. As a result, many Christians engage in a mission of moral fortitude in order to prove their faith to be authentic. And the reality is that this ends up breeding religious legalism rather than a life of grace. In other words, rather than a purpose-driven life aided by a response to God’s unmerited grace, many Christians pursue a purpose-driven life aided by their own efforts of achieving moral stature. Again, it’s as if they have something to prove, despite the fact that the Christian faith was never founded on people’s ability to prove themselves. It has always been founded on the belief that the Christian life is one lived in grateful response to God’s salvific grace. In other words, the “good” that works itself out in the Christian’s life is simply that – an outworking of God’s grace. It’s a product of His work in people’s lives, not a product of human-inspired effort.
But, again, it’s not just a matter of misplaced focus or understanding. It’s what happens as a result of spiritual fatigue. As briefly mentioned in a previous chapter, religious legalism is a tiresome endeavor. It’s a mission that is both misguided and unsustainable. Just as I grew physically tired on the wrestling mat, so do Christians of this sort grow tired mentally and spiritually. And just as I wanted to give up, so do Christians of this sort want to give up in terms of their faith.
The idea, instead, should be to stay the course, to allow their faith to become that which determines their daily activity, to reach a spiritual level at which they can fight through moments of fatigue. And how? By doing what has been implored throughout my writing: practice, train. That is, consistently practicing via individual connection to scripture, prayer, and Christian community. This practice does not promise an elimination of fatigue altogether, but it does promise to strengthen the individual in order to help him or her through the fatigue. Just as consistent practice in the wrestling room keeps the athlete in physical shape to combat their opponents, so does consistent practice in the faith keep the Christian in spiritual shape to overcome the hardships of life that will inevitably confront them.
With that said, I think there is more to be discussed relative to the other side of this: the wrestling side. The fatigue on the wrestling side of things involves more than just the physical. For instance, the mental aspect of things can be just as fatiguing. Certain perspectives or approaches can drain a competitor….
(The above is a sample from a chapter in Faith and Wrestling/2nd Edition. To read the rest of the chapter, check out the book)
Michael Fessler is a writer, speaker, and the author of Faith and Wrestling, They’re Just Not Interested, and The Wrestler.
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