Tag Archives: shadowboxing

day 3K23: Shadowboxing

So I run with purpose in every step. I am not just shadowboxing.

I like to watch when boxers are warming up and they shadowbox.  As a kid I loved watching Muhammad Ali shadowbox around the ring before a fight.  It was cool to see.  But, when he was all warmed up and ready to fight, each of those punches were thrown with purpose, a target and an objective.  I sometimes wonder if in work we spend too much time shadowboxing as perceived effort but in reality we go about our work without a real purpose and target to be achieved.  Today’s productivity tools have gotten better at measuring what we do, but can’t provide the why and the purpose.  Without those, we might be doing a lot but are we really only shadowboxing?

Paul had a purpose and he was about as disciplined and on-point as anyone else.  He recognized the difference between practice and getting warmed up (shadowboxing) and doing the real work at hand.  When he became able to have that discernment, he could make deliberate choices on how he spent his time and energy going about God’s work for him.  It begs the question for all of us; do we know when we are going about the purpose that God has for us, or are we only shadowboxing so that it looks like we do?

Reference:  1 Corinthians 9:26 (New Living Translation)