Using Your Core Isn’t Just Physical; It’s Healthy for Your Spiritual Life Too

Here’s how to raise the bar in your Christian walk

“I can feel myself engaging my core!” I told Connie.

I was delighted — and surprised.

We were powerlifting five pounds on either end of the bar on the incline chest press. I found it a struggle from the first lift.

(“Five” was not a typo; upper body strength is not my strength.)

Partway through my second set, I struggled to lift the weight, my arm muscles, perhaps my chest, fatigued. It was then I felt my core take over. It was a rare occurrence for me, which is why I mentioned it to Connie. But before I reached 10 repetitions, my muscles failed and I had to rack the bar.

But still, after Connie lifted her 10, I got into position for the third set. That memory of my muscles engaging directed me. I focused on using my core to lift.

The weight felt lighter.

I completed the set.

I’d like every aspect of my life to feel lighter so I can complete my “set” well — spiritually, too. How do I engage my core to do that?

How to engage your core physically

It was a Pilates class that first drew my attention to “engaging my core,” which includes four to six muscles (depending on your source) between your upper ribs and your pelvis on the front, sides, and back of your body. They’re intended to stabilize your body as well as enable movement.

The best way to engage those muscles or figure out where they are? Anticipate someone with a strong fist aiming right for your stomach. That deep breath and tightening of your abdominal muscles as you brace yourself for impact does the trick.

If you’re opposed to violence, then simply tuck your tail and zip up your abs, bringing your belly button up and toward your spine.

Because when you don’t engage it…

The next morning while gathering towels for the laundry, I tweaked my back. I was not doing any heavy lifting, mind you. Just reaching for towels and washcloths to carry to the laundry room.

But it was enough.

For the rest of the day, the slightest movement — even walking — triggered a spasm.

I needed help to make the beds I had stripped earlier.

“Bend with your legs, not your back,” my physical therapist husband reminded me as he assisted.

As I went through my Saturday, trying to handle laundry and small household tasks, bending with my legs forced me to load those muscles more than my back muscles.

But only when I consciously also engaged my core, imagining the punch to my gut and using my abdominals to offload my back, did I feel less pain.

Oh, for the power to engage my core always!

My yoga instructor had told me once I needed to engage my core every waking minute — but I don’t. Not on auto-pilot at least. I must make a conscious decision and action to make it happen. Which I can’t seem to do every waking minute.

Except when I am weak or in pain. Then I have no choice. I must engage my core to protect whatever is weak or in pain.

I wish I did it always.

I wish Asa had, too.

He’s one of my favorite kings in the Old Testament. When his army was outnumbered two to one, he cried out to God for help with these magnificent words:

“O LORD, there is no like you to help, between the mighty and the weak,” he prayed. “Help us, O LORD our God, for we rely on you, and in your name we have come against this multitude. O LORD, you are our God; let not man prevail against you.”

2 Kings 14:11, ESV

And God did help in a big way, defeating the bigger army so badly they ran — the underdog army of Judah at their heels, defeating the big dogs and taking their wealth.

That’s the King Asa story I love, but I was disappointed as I read the rest of his story this week. Sadly, he ended his career as Judah’s king — without God’s help.

Without engaging his “core” strength.

Instead, he relied on his own abilities and others around him.

King Asa’s strong beginning

Too often, I share Asa’s reliance on self instead of going to the One who can help like no other.

King Asa (whose story is told in 1 Kings 14-15 and 2 Chronicles 14-16) is considered one of the (few) good kings who ruled the southern kingdom of Israel after David’s death.

After he prayed for help and God fought his battle, Asa sprang into action to clean up his country.

He removed the detestable idols his people had served, repaired the altar of the Lord, and even deposed his own grandmother as queen mother because she’d created an obscene idol to worship instead of God.

Asa led his people back to God — and put his treasure where his heart was:

“Asa’s heart was fully committed to the Lord all his life. He brought into the temple of God the silver and gold and the articles that he and his father had dedicated” (2 Chronicles 15:17b-18, ESV).

King Asa’s disappointing end

But toward the end of his life, Asa failed to engage his core.

At that time when he faced opposition from the rival king in Israel, instead of asking God for help, he used his own wits and resources — and took back the treasure he’d given to God to do it.

“Asa then took the silver and gold out of the treasuries of the Lord’s temple and of his own palace and sent it to Ben-Hadad king of Aram, who was ruling in Damascus” (2 Chronicles 16:2, ESV)

Did you catch that? He paid Ben-Hadad to fight his battle for him — and it worked! (If you consider robbing God to hire a group of pagans to battle your relatives and take family lands a success.)

God wasn’t pleased. Nor was He pleased when Asa turned only to doctors instead of Him for healing.

“Though his disease was severe, even in his illness he did not seek help from the Lord, but only from the physicians” (2 Chronicles 16:12b, ESV).

So sad. He died after suffering for two years with his disease.

What if he’d engaged his core?

Here’s the thing. King Asa had had 20 years of peace and rest in between his giving the treasure to the Lord and taking it from the Lord’s treasury to pay a hitman to deal with the northern kingdom, Israel.

Peace and rest had lulled him to sleep spiritually. He had forgotten this key point: His weakness had powered God’s army on his behalf so many years before. He’d forgotten his forever need for God’s help. His core strength.

He obviously hadn’t been anticipating a sucker punch to his stomach — spiritually — or making it a practice to engage the one true God to help.

He’s our strength. Like our core muscles, He wraps His arms around us to make us stable and enable us to move. He makes our load seem light. (His army goes before us to fight our battles, and entire armies run from our presence. We don’t have to life a finger, just engage Him, our core.)

King Asa’s giving of the treasure to God and his taking away of the same to put into the arms of another savior is quite the image, isn’t it?

Yet, how often do I do the same? More subtly, of course, as I don’t have royal treasures to pack up and give away. But I do have my trust.

And when I’m hurting or sick or winding myself up with all sorts of crazy doomsday forecasts of calamity and woe, I don’t cry “uncle.” I cry, “God, help!”

It’s when I’m experiencing peace and rest and maybe a glimmer of success when I’m most in danger.

When I think I’ve done something only I can do. When I think “I’ve got this.” When I think I can just be me — and that’s all I need. That’s when I take my treasure of trust from God and store it elsewhere.

That’s when I fail to engage my core — spiritually — and rely on myself instead.

That’s when I lower the bar, failing to complete the set as God desired.

Just as I’d done before I learned to engage my core while lifting those hefty five-pound weights with Connie.

Now, to practice engaging my core — physically and spiritually — so doing so becomes automatic.

Jesus, help.

It’s your turn…

How do you remind yourself to “engage your core”? Do you have any tricks for making certain you’re engaging those physical or spiritual muscles as you go through the day? Let me know in the comments below. (You might need to scroll down a bit.)

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