THIS BLOG HAS MOVED TO WWW.DERYLWILLIAMS.COM
I look forward to seeing you there!
Sunday, April 10, 2011
Sunday, April 25, 2010
Wednesday, April 21, 2010
God's Masterpiece
“For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them.” (Ephesians 2:10 NAS95)
Paul has just emphatically stated that salvation is the work of God alone (2:8-9), it is a gift and not something we have earned. He now takes it a step further and declares that we are now God’s workmanship (poiema, work of art; masterpiece). This word occurs only twice in the New Testament and is used to describe the great and marvelous works of God. It is also where we derive the word, “poem.” You are God’s poem, His song. You are an artistic creation of surpassing beauty and designed for a purpose.
As amazing and mysterious as it is, God planned our good works in advance, fashioned them from eternity, and ordained that we would walk in them. We have the unspeakable privilege and responsibility of being “God's fellow workers" (1Corinthians 3:9).
God has chosen to bless others uniquely through you, and you can do what no one else can do. You are God’s masterpiece, His poem, His song. Allow Him to sing through you today.
Paul has just emphatically stated that salvation is the work of God alone (2:8-9), it is a gift and not something we have earned. He now takes it a step further and declares that we are now God’s workmanship (poiema, work of art; masterpiece). This word occurs only twice in the New Testament and is used to describe the great and marvelous works of God. It is also where we derive the word, “poem.” You are God’s poem, His song. You are an artistic creation of surpassing beauty and designed for a purpose.
As amazing and mysterious as it is, God planned our good works in advance, fashioned them from eternity, and ordained that we would walk in them. We have the unspeakable privilege and responsibility of being “God's fellow workers" (1Corinthians 3:9).
God has chosen to bless others uniquely through you, and you can do what no one else can do. You are God’s masterpiece, His poem, His song. Allow Him to sing through you today.
Tuesday, March 23, 2010
No Excuses!!!
If you have never heard of Nick Vudicic before, you are in for an inspiring story! After watching this video you will realize that there is absolutely no reason to live anything less than an exceptional life. You either live life to the fullest, or you make excuses. You can't do both.
Tuesday, March 9, 2010
I'm Back!
I want to first apologize for being MIA for the past couple of weeks. Pretty much every available moment was directed towards the “Your Body Is a Temple” Conference that we did last weekend. I can tell you that I have a much greater respect for those who teach and lead conferences on a regular basis. I understand now why conferences aren’t free. It takes a lot of work and money to put one together! That being said, I want to thank everyone who helped to make the conference such a success. I also want to thank TLC Church and Journey Christian Church for sponsoring the event and for Pastors Dana Key and Dan Henley for their support and encouragement. I also want to thank Mike and Michelle Wise for all of their help behind the scenes and for Laura Hargrave for allowing me to use her laptop when mine decided it wanted to have hardware issues. There is another answered prayer there. What should have been an almost $1000 repair (translate “replacement”) is being covered. I should have my laptop back as good as new in a couple of days. The Lord is does indeed provide!
For those of you who keeping asking for the rest of my story, don’t worry, it’s coming. And if you are interested in learning more about “Your Body Is a Temple” or having a conference at your church, you can email me at deryl@hyperlifefitness.com.
For those of you who keeping asking for the rest of my story, don’t worry, it’s coming. And if you are interested in learning more about “Your Body Is a Temple” or having a conference at your church, you can email me at deryl@hyperlifefitness.com.
Friday, February 12, 2010
Who I am and why I am blogging
For starters, my full name is Deryl Garrard Duer Williams and I am 40 years young. I live in Memphis, TN with my beautiful wife Tracy and our three boys. So what? Big deal you say. The big deal began in the Fall of 2006 when I had a wake-up call. 
At that point in my life, I weighed over 270 lbs. and was diagnosed with high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and pre-diabetes - all by choice. I say by choice, because as Zig Ziglar says, “I have never in my life accidentally eaten anything.” I chose what I ate, when I ate, and how much I ate. I chose not to exercise. I chose to be unhealthy. At the time I was in seminary and growing spiritually and intellectually but my body, the temple of the Holy Spirit, was a wreck. I could no longer afford to be apathetic when it came to my health! In the past my motivation to lose weight had been that I wanted to look good, but looking good isn’t good enough. I was now faced with the simple fact that I was killing myself through my eating habits and inactive lifestyle. God gives us one body and one life to live and I was abusing His gifts. I made the decision that I was going do something about my health. I wasn’t going to “try,” I wasn’t going to “see if it worked for me” I decided I was going to DO IT! The Bible tells me that “I can do all things through Him who strengthens me.” I was just dumb enough to believe it. The transformation I went through is nothing short of amazing! At forty years of age I am in the absolute best shape of my life! I am leaner and stronger than I have ever been. My blood-pressure, blood sugar, and cholesterol are all in not just healthy ranges, but are considered excellent. I am happier, I have more energy, better health, more confidence, and better relationships. All because I made the decision to take care of this body that God has given me. To take care of His temple. I believe that God gives us the trials and blessings of life so that we can in turn minister to others. So that’s why I am blogging, in the hopes that my story will inspire others that they too can change their life.
So how did I do it? Well, first I started eating better. My dad recommended the South Beach Diet, so I bought the book and started there. But my doctor had advised me that I needed to eat better AND exercise. Here I ran into a problem. I was a seminary student and only working part-time, we didn’t have a lot of money, so I couldn’t afford a gym. That meant I had to find a way to work out at home, something that had never worked for me in the past. I had some old Tae Bo videos but they were VHS and our VHS player was dead. The only workout we had on DVD was Slim-in-6. My wife had ordered it off of a TV infomercial two years earlier after our first son was born. I have to confess that I didn’t exactly support her in that decision. I think I said something along the lines of “You can’t get in really good shape from a DVD,” and “That’s a girlie workout.” Tracy started seeing results pretty quickly but went back to work a couple of weeks later and between the busyness of life and my lack of support, Slim-in-6 soon found itself collecting dust on the shelf. So here I am, two years later, dusting off these DVD’s I had made fun of. I put them in, pushed play, and had my tail handed to me for the next 30 minutes. Determined not to let this girlie workout get the best of me I started pushing play every day. Then I dug out the Nutrition plan and lo and behold it was pretty much how I was already eating on South Beach. I ordered some of the Beachbody
Supplements, kept working out, and kept eating right. When I went back to see my doctor 6 weeks later I was down to 235 pounds, dropped 6 inches off of my waist and my blood pressure, cholesterol and blood sugar were all in normal ranges. I think the Doc’s jaw hit the floor. Apparently most people don’t act on their doctor’s advice. Go figure. Through a combination of proper nutrition and exercise I was able to avoid medication. I had made great progress, but I knew I couldn’t go back to my old habits. This was a new way of life for me. I continued doing Slim-in-6 and went to the Beachbody website where I found P90X. I ordered it and committed to starting the program on January 1, 2007. I was in the process of applying for full-time position with the Shelby County Sheriff’s Office and that would give me exactly 90 days before the Academy started. On Dec. 31, the day before I started P90X, I was down to 208 pounds. An amazing transformation already, but I was not prepared for what was going to happen next. Check back later for Part 2 of my story...
At that point in my life, I weighed over 270 lbs. and was diagnosed with high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and pre-diabetes - all by choice. I say by choice, because as Zig Ziglar says, “I have never in my life accidentally eaten anything.” I chose what I ate, when I ate, and how much I ate. I chose not to exercise. I chose to be unhealthy. At the time I was in seminary and growing spiritually and intellectually but my body, the temple of the Holy Spirit, was a wreck. I could no longer afford to be apathetic when it came to my health! In the past my motivation to lose weight had been that I wanted to look good, but looking good isn’t good enough. I was now faced with the simple fact that I was killing myself through my eating habits and inactive lifestyle. God gives us one body and one life to live and I was abusing His gifts. I made the decision that I was going do something about my health. I wasn’t going to “try,” I wasn’t going to “see if it worked for me” I decided I was going to DO IT! The Bible tells me that “I can do all things through Him who strengthens me.” I was just dumb enough to believe it. The transformation I went through is nothing short of amazing! At forty years of age I am in the absolute best shape of my life! I am leaner and stronger than I have ever been. My blood-pressure, blood sugar, and cholesterol are all in not just healthy ranges, but are considered excellent. I am happier, I have more energy, better health, more confidence, and better relationships. All because I made the decision to take care of this body that God has given me. To take care of His temple. I believe that God gives us the trials and blessings of life so that we can in turn minister to others. So that’s why I am blogging, in the hopes that my story will inspire others that they too can change their life.So how did I do it? Well, first I started eating better. My dad recommended the South Beach Diet, so I bought the book and started there. But my doctor had advised me that I needed to eat better AND exercise. Here I ran into a problem. I was a seminary student and only working part-time, we didn’t have a lot of money, so I couldn’t afford a gym. That meant I had to find a way to work out at home, something that had never worked for me in the past. I had some old Tae Bo videos but they were VHS and our VHS player was dead. The only workout we had on DVD was Slim-in-6. My wife had ordered it off of a TV infomercial two years earlier after our first son was born. I have to confess that I didn’t exactly support her in that decision. I think I said something along the lines of “You can’t get in really good shape from a DVD,” and “That’s a girlie workout.” Tracy started seeing results pretty quickly but went back to work a couple of weeks later and between the busyness of life and my lack of support, Slim-in-6 soon found itself collecting dust on the shelf. So here I am, two years later, dusting off these DVD’s I had made fun of. I put them in, pushed play, and had my tail handed to me for the next 30 minutes. Determined not to let this girlie workout get the best of me I started pushing play every day. Then I dug out the Nutrition plan and lo and behold it was pretty much how I was already eating on South Beach. I ordered some of the Beachbody
Supplements, kept working out, and kept eating right. When I went back to see my doctor 6 weeks later I was down to 235 pounds, dropped 6 inches off of my waist and my blood pressure, cholesterol and blood sugar were all in normal ranges. I think the Doc’s jaw hit the floor. Apparently most people don’t act on their doctor’s advice. Go figure. Through a combination of proper nutrition and exercise I was able to avoid medication. I had made great progress, but I knew I couldn’t go back to my old habits. This was a new way of life for me. I continued doing Slim-in-6 and went to the Beachbody website where I found P90X. I ordered it and committed to starting the program on January 1, 2007. I was in the process of applying for full-time position with the Shelby County Sheriff’s Office and that would give me exactly 90 days before the Academy started. On Dec. 31, the day before I started P90X, I was down to 208 pounds. An amazing transformation already, but I was not prepared for what was going to happen next. Check back later for Part 2 of my story...
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