I slept until
I do not actually sleep with the giant pink pillow in bulbous tennis
shoes shaped like a heart with the jolly disposition (I know you
have been wondering), but I do lean it against the wall opposite the foot of
the bed where I can fellowship with it should the nights wax lonely. Loneliness
is, so far, deferred, for each night passes (short as the nights may be)
without my awareness. I have been so exhausted I cannot even remember—on any
given night—closing my eyes.
By the time I get adjusted to Pacific Time, I will be back
East.
I worked out yesterday at YMCA on Durango
Street , and so did the Newmans. I am a member of
the Y in Johnstown , PA Johnstown
membership, I get ten free visits to any Y in the country. While Joe and
Matthew played basketball, Melinda and Hannah and I hit the treadmills.
I showed Melinda how to do the uphill sprints, and for how
long. I told her it’s better to exercise smart, than long. “It’s all about
stressing the body for limited periods of time, followed by rest,” I told her.
I think she may have hated me for that at first—sweating, breathing hard,
finding out how long 15 seconds can be—but in the end, she saw the benefit of
doing it right and getting it over with.
We then went to the weight room and I showed her my “Power
of 10” routine:
slow, controlled, concentrated reps (no more than six), with heavy weight. The
concept is to bring the muscle to failure in the shortest period of time, and
then push against the failure for one or two seconds before lowering the
weight at the same slow speed. This eliminates repetitive sets, which I’ve always hated. This way, you
do one set of very few reps, and you’re done. Melinda said, “I like this
method!” Me, too.
We finished our Y time with a basketball game: Matthew and
me versus Hannah and Joe; playing to ten
by ones. I guarded Joe. Matthew kept letting Hannah get open in the perimeter,
not believing his sister could hit from there. Problem: Hannah kept hitting
from there. We tightened up the D, and it came down to a 9-9 tie; next basket wins.
I took the ball out, passed to Matthew, who passed back to me; I dribbled
twice, then found Matthew cutting underneath. I passed, he shot, scored—and we
sure enjoyed our time at the Y.
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| Broadcasting the Martin Zender Show from my Las Vegas studio, otherwise known as Hanna's room. Eat your heat out, Don Imus. (Click to enlarge.) |
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The meeting last night was the third in three days, and glory-laden. We discussed our identity with Christ. Where Christ is—seated at
the right hand of God—is where we shall be. What did we do to attain this
position? Nothing. What did Christ do? Everything.
I took us to Romans, chapter 6, highlighting the
“togethers” of that passage: entombed together with Him, our old nature
crucified together with Him, being roused together with Him. God identifies us
with Christ in the bad side of the equation, but also in the good.
How gracious of God to say we were crucified with
Christ, without us having to actually be nailed to that horrible post. I told
the saints: here we were, sitting on living room chairs in a pleasant
neighborhood in a pleasant city, reading how God said we were crucified with His Son, baptized into
His death, and entombed with Him. What did we actually do? Nothing. We had not
even been born. Where were we now? Sitting on comfortable chairs in Las
Vegas . And yet, to God, we were there on the torture
stake. To Christ, we were there. (Because of this, we will be together
with Him in resurrection also.)
Picture Christ, the loneliest creature in the universe that
day. A survival technique, for Him, was to picture us. He did this in His
mind’s eye. In His mind’s eye, we shared His convulsions and helped Him through
them. He thought of us, without actually knowing us. This sustained Him, even
before we existed. He knew how thankful we would someday be.
The crucifixion was not ours to taste. Not so the glory. When
it comes to the glory, the sweetness runs down our throats. How is this a
bad deal for any of us? I asked. We were not even alive during the six
hours of torture, yet God considered us present. Then, when glory time comes
(the manifestation of Christ to the universe), He waits for us, and shares with
us—in person—the glorious outcome.
I was stunned—and am continually, but especially last night—by
the generosity and graciousness of Christ. As the necessary torture was imputed
to us apart from our experience, so the coming glory might have been thusly imputed, for a
perfect parallel. But no. Screw parallels, says God. The suffering happens apart from us, the glory
patiently waits for us. Christ brings us to heaven to personally taste His
reward.
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| (Click to enlarge.) |
“Now if we died together with Christ, we believe that we
shall be living together with Him also” (Romans 6:8).
The “died together” is past; the “living together” is
future. For the present, Paul prays that we come to a realization of this. This
is my prayer for you, the reader, and it was my prayer last night for the saints, that we should attain to the
unity of the faith and of the realization of the son of God, to a mature man,
to the measure of the stature of the complement of the Christ.
Later today, we go to The Strip.
© 2012 by Martin Zender
