Is Not Exercising a Sin?
Exercise guilt starts out subtle, but can quickly progress to an overwhelming sense that you’re never doing enough.
And when you consider all of the exercise “rules” and recommendations out there, is it any wonder? A simple scroll through a few fitness influencers Instagram posts yields the following advice:
Did you get in your 30 minutes of physical activity today? How about last week? Have you done 2-3 days of resistance training for the whole body and 3-5 days of cardio at a moderate pace?
Did you know that high intensity interval training (HIIT) is the most efficient way to build muscle and lose fat? You can only do 2-3 days of HIIT, or you'll get burned out. But don't rest too long, or you'll lose everything you gained.
It takes a few weeks to build your aerobic base, so don't get off track. Consistency is key. There really are no excuses. You can still find ways to exercise when you're sick from the neck up, but make sure you're wearing adequate clothing to keep your body heated correctly to prevent your body from working overtime. Dry-wicking material is best. Cotton is best because it dries naturally and doesn't stick to your skin. Make sure to buy organic, because cotton production has a high price tag for the environment. When you run outside, don't breathe in the car fumes, run on trails. And when you run, use these shoes…
Yikes! Are you done with this yet?
At some point, many of us get burned out on all the rules and stop exercising altogether. When this happens, resting from exercise becomes the best way to heal our relationship with movement. It gives us a chance to loose the tangled hold fitness behaviors have on our perceived value, and provides bodies and minds time to heal. If you're new to intuitive movement and need to start from scratch, we recommend you go here first.
What Does the Bible Say About Exercise Guilt?
If you're stuck in a spiritual battle over exercise, lost in the weeds of wellness culture as a Christian, stay with me. If you often feel spiritual guilt for lack of physical movement, you're in the right place.
While this can be a sticky subject, our role here is not to tell you the answer, but to present Scripture and let you work this out with the Lord and with trusted Spirit-filled people in your life.
Yes, the word “sin” is controversial in our day-and-age, but guilt is not.
Guilt is common when it comes to doing “the right thing” with exercise, and can affect not just our movement habits, but our identity as we relate to being able to follow-through with other responsibilities in life.
But the real question is, is your exercise guilt founded?
If there is sin involved, we have salvation in Christ and the invitation to repent with a blessed assurance of pardon. If not, may we not let worldly guilt weigh us down and keep us away from God’s face and the gift that exercise can be.
Let's separate man-made rules from God's original design and ask Him to give us eyes to see when it comes to exercise and our bodies.
When we make exercise about our own rules, we lose the joy. When we lose the joy, we lose the motivation. And when we lose motivation, we use guilt to motivate us instead. And when we use guilt, we slide into shame. And when we feel ashamed, we turn away from God. And when we turn away from God, we exile ourselves into our own way.
Do you see how exercise (or a lack of exercise) in itself is not sinful or virtuous? It is how we think about exercise that turns us to or away from God.
Exercise itself is one expression of many ways to move, a morally neutral action on its own. The question is whether or not this movement will bring us to face God or to turn away in shame.
Let's back up for a moment and talk about why we feel guilty when we don't exercise. Guilt is not all the same. There are two types of guilt, and knowing which one you're feeling is crucial to heal your relationship with exercise.
"For the kind of sorrow God wants us to experience leads us away from sin and results in salvation. There’s no regret for that kind of sorrow. But worldly sorrow, which lacks repentance, results in spiritual death." 2 Corinthians 7:10, NLT
Worldly Sorrow with Exercise
Worldly sorrow is rooted in worldly expectations, centering on self-effort independent of God’s grace.
The world's standard for fitness proves itself with fit-looking bodies. Yet exercise that focuses on external appearances typically gives no regard to inherent gifts, abilities, passions, or humble limitations.
For example, a weight loss program may recommend high impact activities or long sessions demanding 100% compliance, which may not be feasible for pregnancy or arthritis or a busy lifestyle. Even if it is doable for a short time, it may not prove to be realistic in every season. Inability to adhere to the program can result in sorrow. And this sorrow can lead to guilt.
This type of guilt is centered on someone else's idea of what's good for you, depends on self-effort, and leads to a dead end when all you have is yourself. As 1st Corinthians 15:56 says, "the sting of death is sin," and this is how this kind of sorrow (worldly-sorrow) feels. If you feel this kind of despair around your relationship with exercise, take heart. You don't have to continue a pursuit of healthy movement on your own!
2. Godly Sorrow Around Exercise
Here’s the big difference between the two types of sorrow: worldly sorrow pushes us away from God, but godly sorrow leads us to God.
The only sorrow we need feel with exercise is when we feel we are alone in it. Nothing can separate us from the love of Christ, not any amount of laying on the couch or sleeping in. As we find unconditional permission to eat in intuitive eating, we must find unconditional permission to rest with joyful movement. Jesus invites those who are weary and heavy laden to come to Him. If this is you, extending your arm to receive the invitation may be your best exercise yet.
You can rest from the rules. Jesus has fulfilled them. If we want to succeed, we must start with Christ and His definition of success, which usually has nothing to do with how our bodies look and more to do with how our heart is oriented.
The heart of joyful movement is moving in praise out of grace.
And if grace is unmerited favor, no amount of exercise effort can win Christ's affection for us. We already have it! And that's why we move. Praise has no prescription. Following Jesus has no flow chart. Make God the center, and your exercise habits will naturally gravitate towards Him.
Grace breaks the mold of traditional exercise, and gives us freedom to feel.
We get to move back into our bodies and put our trust back in God’s design.
We get to be curious about stiffness and soreness and how it all fits into the greater Kingdom of God.
We get to experience burning lungs and the pavement under our feet and feel strangely alive.
We get to take an epsom salt bath and let our muscle tension and stress melt away without guilt, because we know that every good and perfect gift comes from above.
We get to move in fresh ways, new as each day’s mercies. We get to stick to a structure, not because it’s our cage but because it supports a chaotic season. And whatever exercise looks like for us, our value and worth is not founded on what we do but what Christ has done. The options of exercise with God are endless because we are free!
How Christians Should Exercise
Friends, anytime you catch yourself feeling guilty around exercise, ask yourself:
Am I depending on myself? Or…
Am I going to God?
A few telltale signs that you are depending on yourself with fitness are the following:
Anxiety about getting in a workout
Confusion about the best way to workout
Anger when you can't live up to the expectations
Irritation with others who interrupt your routine
You can also check the physical symptoms you need to rest from exercise or move your body in this post.
Here are positive signs that you’re going to God with exercise:
Your peace is not contingent upon a workout
You ask God for wisdom when you're not sure how to take care of your body
You praise God even when things don't work out because you know Christ is enough
You do not worry about what others think when you exercise in a way that feels right for your body
Instead of seeing others as interruption to your plans, you can invite them and all their contributions
As you can see, how Christians should exercise relies less on minutia and rules and more on the bigger picture under the umbrella of grace.
You can run a marathon and feel the joy of the Lord. You can skip a workout with friends and continue to enjoy the peace of His presence. What matters most is that you seek Him in whatever you do, whether you eat or drink or do anything, do it for the glory of God (1 Corin 10:31)
In Christ, you cannot be wrong. Let Him be your righteousness, and whatever form exercise takes throughout your life will be just another way to walk by faith. Amen?!
Joyful Health Course
If you'd like more guidance on healing your relationship with exercise in Christ, we encourage you to sign up for our course waiting list.
In this course, we anchor each video lesson in Scripture and prayer, applying intuitive eating and movement principles to free you up to step into the joyful health you were made for. The next 12-Week course opens up in March, so invite a friend and let's do this together!
