Confession time: I hate leg day. Yep. Hate it with a passion!
Give me chest, shoulders, or biceps, and I’m good to go. But leg day? No thanks. That’s the day I suddenly feel the urge to take a rest day.
It’s not that I can’t do squats or deadlifts. Actually the moves aren’t hard at all and I can handle a decent amount of weight. I just don’t want to. They’re uncomfortable. They burn. They make it hard to sit or stand the next day. Heck they make me question all my life choices.
But you know what happens when you skip leg day too often? You start to look like a man riding a chicken. You’re all big up top, tiny at the bottom, unstable when life gets heavy.
And honestly, that’s what a lot of Christians look like spiritually. Strong in the more visible areas like church attendance, Christian talk, surface-level kindness that better not interrupt my day. But all too often weak in the parts that actually carry the weight.
Because real faith, like real strength, is built from the ground up.
The Apostle Paul wrote, “Train yourself for godliness; for while bodily training is of some value, godliness is of value in every way.” (1 Timothy 4:7–8, ESV) He wasn’t talking about how we handle ourselves at the gym. He was talking about discipline. The kind of commitment that builds unseen strength.
It’s the same in devotion. Everybody loves the mountaintop moments! You know the powerful worship set, the answered prayer, the goosebumps of God’s presence. But not many people love the grind. The leg day of the spiritual walk. Things like showing up to Scripture when it feels dry, praying when nothing visible is happening, serving when nobody seems to notice.
That’s spiritual leg day. It’s not fun. It’s not flashy. But it’s what gives your faith stability when life drops something heavy on your shoulders.
The older I get, the more I realize: Faith that skips leg day looks good in the mirror but collapses under pressure.
So yeah, I still hate deadlifts. But I do them. Not because I like them, but because I need what they build. The endurance, humility, and strength where it counts.
The same goes for devotion. God’s not impressed by how spiritual you look up top. He’s shaping the foundation underneath.
So show up. Do the not so – glamorous work. Train your soul as much as your body.
Because when life gets heavy (and it will), you don’t want to be the spiritual guy or gal riding a chicken!
