Fake Hustle

I grew up the son of a sportscaster.  Sports are in my genes.  I was blessed to be around a lot of professional athletes when I was younger.  Because of that, I love all things sports.  Playing them, watching them, and watching sports shows...I love it all.

Two of the sports shows I've become addicted to over the years are the ESPN shows, Around the Horn and Pardon the Interruption.  For the most part, they are just guys arguing about sports.  It's what I do with my friends but these guys actually get paid for it.  Not a bad gig if you ask me.

The shows are not exactly deep in a spiritual sense but as I've seen over the years, God can use normal non-spiritual topics to spark something deeper spiritually in me.  One of the things that has really stuck with me recently has been the topic of fake hustle that co-host Mike Wilbon has brought up.  Now, he's credited the idea of fake hustle to someone else who I actually can't remember right now but Wilbon has been using it recently.

Basically, the idea of fake hustle is exactly what it sounds like.  It's having the appearance of hustling but really just going thru the motions.  You look like you're doing a lot but really, you're not doing much.  You're not trying, not giving your all.

I think I connect with that because that was me in high school.  Once I got to games, I gave 100% but in practice and training, it was a different story.  For soccer, big parts of training were running and weightlifting.  Weightlifting came easy to me but I wasn't a huge fan of it.  I found ways of making it look like I was doing a lot while doing very little.  There was a lot of taking weight off and putting it on but not a lot of lifting.

It's kind of like those people nowadays who go to the gym just to take selfies and stare at themselves in the mirror.  Everyone thinks they went to the gym because they instagrammed it but in reality, they barely even worked out.

For me with running in high school, I literally cut corners.  Once we were out of coach's sight on our five mile runs, we were cutting corners, cutting streets, turning around early.  I use we because I wasn't the only one.  It was me and all of the other out of shape kids.  My favorite fake hustle was when I would act like I was hanging back to encourage all the slow kids.  Yeah, I was that slow kid but I was a goalie so it was more expected.  But still, it was fake hustle.

It wasn't good for me.  It hurt me in the long run and it hurt my team.  I wasn't achieving my full potential and because of that, my team was weakened.  I probably played a lot less minutes because of it too.  When you're young, you don't think about it.  That's not really on your radar.  You might even be told you're hurting yourself and the team but you either can't see it or just don't care.

Today, I've thankfully outgrown that.  I've grown a stubborness that doesn't allow me to cut corners with my workouts.  I now run almost five miles at a time every couple of days.  I won't allow myself to cut corners.  There's a deep guilt, conviction and anxiety if I think of cutting corners.  I've even gotten to a point where I push it farther than I was planning to or should go.  I think to myself, "I can always go a little further."  And that's coming from someone who still hates running with a passion.

Because I hate running, one of the things I do to pass the time and take my mind off of how awful running makes me feel is to listening to sermons on my iPod.  I focus on that and don't focus on how awful running actually is.

Well, a sermon I listened to recently sparked the connection between it and fake hustle.  The sermon wasn't about fake hustle but somehow, the two connected in my brain and left me with the question of: How often do we fake hustle in our spiritual lives as Christians?  How often do we just go thru the motions.  If we're just going to church so that others see us and think we're super spiritual, that's fake hustle.  If we're just reading our Bible but not putting it into practice, that's fake hustle.  Maybe it's going on a mission trip but really only because you love to travel.  Fake hustle.  Maybe someone has a problem, an issue, or needs help and all we offer to them is our prayers.  Again, fake hustle.  I could go on and on.

If you're just fake hustling thru the Christian life, you're hurting not only yourself but your team.  You're hurting the body of Christ.  You're hurting Christ's mission.  Fake hustlers seem to think they have everyone fooled but in reality, they don't.  People see right thru it.  Within Christianity, that makes you look bad and it makes other Christians look bad.  And the worst thing about it, it makes Jesus look bad.

Eventually, fake hustlers come to a crossroads.  You'll realize you're not fooling anyone and just give up all together...or you'll drop the act and the hustle won't be fake anymore.  It will be real.  It will be genuine.  You'll start growing.  And when you start growing, it encourages others around you in growing, in getting stronger.  It builds up a better team.

To close it up, it's simple.  Watch out for fake hustle in our spiritual lives.  It's not good for us or anyone around us.  I think these verses sum the whole issue up nicely:

"24 Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one receives the prize? So run that you may obtain it. 25 Every athlete exercises self-control in all things. They do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable. 26 So I do not run aimlessly; I do not box as one beating the air. 27 But I discipline my body and keep it under control, lest after preaching to others I myself should be disqualified."  1st Corinthians 9: 24-27