Breaking Bad Quotes

Warm-Up

What is atrophy?

1. (of body tissue or an organ) waste away, typically due to the degeneration of cells, or become vestigial during evolution.
"without exercise, the muscles will atrophy"
Synonyms: waste away, become emaciated, wither, shrivel (up), shrink; More


2. gradually decline in effectiveness or vigor due to underuse or neglect.
"her artistic skills atrophied from lack of use"

Workout

Atrophy is a natural by-product of an underused muscle. The muscle becomes smaller and weaker because proper attention has not been devoted to that muscle. It is a very common occurrence and I have seen it quite often. Even though I am well versed in the area of muscular development the picture above of my leg still shocked me. Why was it so shocking? Well, because the male brain works a little differently. Men are usually more satisfied with our body image than women. Some of us have such a positive body image that we will see a large beer belly and believe we have an 8 pack of abs. This positive self image makes us less likely to notice subtle changes in to our bodies. Well in my male brain I believed my leg looked the same as it did before surgery. Now for some reason, I could look directly at my knee and think it was fine. Even in the mirror it looked pretty normal to me, but for some reason, a picture revealed my true condition.

If you don’t use it you lose it, that is the unofficial definition of atrophy. This concept is the same in our spiritual livesl. If I stop exercising my faith (trusting God) eventually my ability to practice it will dwindle. If I stop exercising my conscience, that still small voice can disappear. So you might be ready to ridicule me for pointing out something so obvious but wait. If its so obvious, why does it still happen? The simple answer is that every man, woman, and child is just like me in that we often don’t see ourselves as we are.

Our spiritual muscles often become weak without us even noticing. In my early twenties, I felt I had a lot going for myself. I had just gotten my first job, I had my own vehicles, my own place, and I was nationally ranked in the sport in which I competed. At the time I felt that those were the greatest days of my life. This was a time of incredible self-confidence for me and it led me to fail in areas of my spiritual walk that left my spirit atrophied and weak.

First, I stop waiting on God. I would do what I wanted when I wanted. During this time I was prone to make hasty decisions at a moment’s notice. I did not wait for guidance from the Holy Spirit. I became reckless with dating and became involved with women I had no business dating. I had grown tired of waiting on God to show me who to marry, so I took it upon myself. The end result was one failed relationship after another and a spirit that did not function at its best. Isaiah 40:31 tells us that those who wait upon the Lord will renew their strength. I failed to allow the lord to renew my strength and it led to extreme atrophy, it was almost as if I had lost the ability to wait on God in any area of my life.

Second, I stopped drawing my strength from God. For a time I wanted everyone to know that I was a guy from the rough part of town. I wanted everyone to know all the adversity that I had overcome to become the man that I was. I was quick to point out the hardships that I had made it through but I failed to acknowledge that God had carries me through. During this time I had rigged up a recording studio in my bedroom and made dozens of songs about my life growing up and how dangerous my neighborhood was (I feel pretty silly thinking back on it). There were two major flaws in my line of thinking first, although we were poor, Pompano Beach Florida was not that bad. My constant focus on my tough upbringing led to a bit of exaggeration. Second, and most importantly a city, a country, a team, a family, a job, or any other thing we may choose to identify with or draw our strength from is completely powerless when it comes to eternal salvation. As a result of me trying to identify with the 33060 as opposed to YHWH, my spirit man began to shrivel even more.

Lastly, I failed to focus on God. So as my spiritual muscle began to wither the enemy of our souls was ready to pounce.

Genesis 4:7
If you do what is right, will you not be accepted? But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at your door; it desires to have you, but you must rule over it."

Everything that was going perfect in my life was starting to spiral out of control. My dating habits had lead to a very hostile work environment. I was 23 at the time and a co-worker had a daughter my age. My co-worker convinced me to go on a date with her daughter. I did, I was a perfect gentleman but once the date was over I never called her again and I stopped answering her phone calls. I wasn’t being intentionally rude but I had developed some pretty severe anxiety at this point. I was not interested in pursuing a relationship with this young lady but I could not muster up the courage to let her know. I had accepted Jesus and became a Christian six year earlier so I knew what was right and I should have had a means of gaining the courage to do it. If I could have pulled together the strength to focus on Christ rather than my anxiety no one would have been hurt. But my spirit was weak. As it turns out several people at my job were either friends with or somehow related to my co-worker's daughter. My actions had made me public enemy number one at my new job. I was now the outcast at my job and to make matters worse I had began racking up a lot of debt in pursuit of a chance at Olympic gold in wrestling. I was constantly frustrated, I would attend church service but my spirit was too weak to receive a revelation. Eventually, I fell into sin in a major way that took 2 years for the Lord to break me free.

How did this all start? It started with me refusing to wait on the Lord in one area and it snowballed into me falling head-on into sin. Coming through this trial did, in fact, strengthen me and helped me to seek out a woman whom God had chosen for me. Now I’m happily married with two kids. But the lessons that I learned from the mistake of 23-year-old me will stick with me forever. If we fail to acknowledge God, even in the smallest ways we can weaken our spirits enough for the process of atrophy to begin. Paul warns us of the dangers of allowing ourselves to fall into this spiritually weakened state.

Cool Down

Romans 1:21
Yes, they knew God, but they wouldn't worship him as God or even give him thanks. And they began to think up foolish ideas of what God was like. As a result, their minds became dark and confused.

My Prayer

Lord please help me to recognise the areas of my life that have begun to atrophy. Help me to have a realistic self-assessment of myself. Please forgive me for the times that I have failed to give you due credit and please help me to acknowledge when I do so. Please continue to reveal yourself to me and those within my circle of influence. In Jesus name Amen.