I hate Wii Fit

I got my wife a Wii Fit for Christmas. She loves it. I hate it.

Basically it is a jerk. The thing is rude. Maybe it knows how I feel about it, and that is why it treats me the way it does. I don't know. Every time I step on the thing it tells me I'm obese. Now, granted, I know I can lose a couple pounds, but obese? C'mon now. It decides that I'm obese because it thinks that at my height (6' 2") I should weigh 185 lbs. I haven't weighed that much since I was a Jr. in high school. All I wanted to do at that point was gain weight. It doesn't seem to understand that there is more to obesity than your height to weight ratio.

I hate the treadmill too, but not as much. It waits for me in the morning - its little lights glowing green and yellow and orange. It taunts me with all the flashing and blinking, trying to make me believe that it is fun in some way. It isn't. It is the modern day equivalent of the old stretching machine torture device. It pushes my body to its utter limits, trying to break me - but I can watch TV while it happens! At least I get to sweat all over it with reckless abandon.

So, why does the Fit rank above the treadmill on my hate list? It measures the wrong thing. I connect my phone to the treadmill and it records my workouts. When I get home I can upload the workouts to Nike+ and it tells me what I've done. It keeps track of how faithful I've been in my runs. The Fit just tells me if I'm fat or not. It's all about success; according to the Fit I'm a long way from success. (But that doesn't stop it from telling me each time that I've failed.)

Way too often we look at God more like the Fit than the treadmill. (Bet you've never heard that one before.) We think that God wants success, that he wants us to win, to conquer and to triumph. He doesn't. (He's the winner, the conqueror and the triumpher, not us.)

In Matthew 25 we find the parable of the talents. The highest praise the master gives is "Well done my good and faithful servant." He never says, "You've won" or "You succeeded" or "You raised more money than the other guy" or "You could've done better". He says, "You were faithful."

"Make a tree good and its fruit will be good, or make a tree bad and its fruit will be bad, for a tree is recognized by its fruit." So what is that fruit? "But the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control." Notice anything missing? "Success" is not a fruit of the spirit. Yet I try to make it one.

So does the Wii Fit - and that's why I hate it so much.