Sauna Sweat Session…

I don’t know about you…but the sauna is something I’m learning to love. Don’t get me wrong, I love the heat in a cold Minnesota winter. I love the feeling of warmth in my core… for about 5 minutes. And then, it feels like the sauna is going to suffocate me.

To say it lightly…. I have a low tolerance for heat.

No joke. 

It’s a mental game for me. A place where I must be quiet and focused. To focus on my breathing and to remind myself that I will not pass out in 10 minutes in the sauna. I’m healthy, well hydrated, and I will be okay. 

It dawned on me, as I was “increasing” my sauna time, that the sauna for me is a lot like trials in life. I have a low tolerance when walking through trials. While walking through the largest trial in my life I remember someone saying, “let’s just take it a month at a time”. My thought was immediately… “30 days!? I can’t last one more day in this pain. I want it fixed now.” 

It felt like I was suffocating from the circumstances around me. My body and brain screamed I wasn’t going to make it and just like the sauna…I had to fix my focus. I had to be quiet. I learned presence. It started as survival…but then became a way of life. 

I found that through this trial I learned a way to live in freedom.

I like the benefits and results of saunas…but I don’t like being in the scorching heat for more than 5 minutes. Believe me, I understand that no one “willingly” walks into trials in life (as we do the sauna) …but stick with me. 

A sauna has many benefits: increased circulation, respiratory health, immune system boost, decreases stress, etc. I want all those things, but the issue is, I have to sit in the sauna longer than five minutes to receive the benefits of it. 

I have to sit in the heat. 

And if we are being honest, the heat is uncomfortable. 

It’s the same for trials. Trials are uncomfortable, yet they can bring forth beneficial aspects to life as well.

I’ve learned over the last few years that trials, although uncomfortable and often painful, also can refine you, purify you, and increase your faith. The hard part is- sometimes you must sit in the trial for more than 5 minutes to see the benefit. 

My initial instinct is to fix, run, or try to escape the pressing and uncomfortable issues that life brings. The “fight or flight” mode is real for me. Yet as I have learned to embrace and process the hard parts of life, I have seen God bring forth peace and healing out of challenging situations. 

I’m not saying to willingly set up camp and pitch a tent in the middle of a trial, nor am I saying that God keeps us in trials to “teach us a lesson”. That isn’t the heart of a loving God. 

Hear me out: I think God is a loving God, who takes the firey trials we experience here on earth and uses them to refine us, purify us, and bring forth gold. We live on Earth, so naturally due to the issue of sin, we will face trials. 

Yet a loving God uses it all. He uses the good, the bad, and the neutral and works it for our good. This is the confidence we have: no matter what we go through, God can turn it for our good and HIS glory. 

Romans 8:28

And we know that in all things God works

for the good of those who love him,

who have been called according to his purpose.

So, if you find yourself in the heat. In the middle of the dry desert. Go to God. Ask him to bring forth good out of this pressing situation. Don’t run, “stuff”, or wish it away…

Walk toward God, with all the pressure and emotions, and as you do, you have the promise that he will work “it” for good. It might not “feel good”. It might feel like pressure, scorching heat, or it might make you sweat. 

But the benefits look like this: Peace, joy, comfort, and truth- outside of circumstance.  

And that can’t be taken.