Press Towards the Goal

The year was 1965, the year I graduated from high school. It was summer, and I was working on the B&O railroad to help pay for my college education, which was to begin the following September. I had enrolled in the Cincinnati Bible Seminary with the goal of becoming a preacher, following in my father's footsteps. That June evening, I had caught a work train which would take me to the south Chicago railroad yards from my home near the small town of Garrett, Indiana, which is where our train terminal was located. Our crew worked throughout the early evening into the wee hours of the morning when we finally arrived in Chicago. Our crew was tired, dirty and hungry. I do not know how the fight started, but two young men in the yard, at least one of whom was from a different crew than ours, began to argue and then to fight. The fight lasted only for a very brief time during which neither man was seriously injured, but that fight had a lasting impression on me because one of the combatants employed kicks, some basic footwork, and some techniques with his hands which I had never seen. I spoke to him after the altercation and asked him to explain what I had just seen. "I used some karate I learned" was his laconic reply. 

I had little experience in fighting but had learned some very basic boxing from my father and occasionally would get into a tussle with other boys at school, during which we usually wrestled until someone got a bit bloody or simply gave up. Nothing serious. I made a promise to myself when I got to Cincinnati, I would find out more about this karate stuff, and I enrolled in a martial arts dojo the next year, 1966. 

I purchased my first car, a 1956 Chevrolet, from a neighboring farmer. I paid four hundred dollars for it the summer I turned fifteen in 1962. At this time, my dad preached in a rural church near Waterloo, Indiana. It was a great church and experienced solid growth during dad's ministry. It was great growing up in northeast Indiana and working on the area farms to contribute to the family's finances. To help pay for the car, I got a job at a supermarket in the nearby town of Auburn, the county seat of DeKalb County. 

I have always been a small person and endured the usual teasing and crude comments that go along with being a 5´2˝ man. The job at the supermarket, which I needed to pay for my car, lasted for two weeks. The manager informed me as I went to clock in after the two weeks I had worked, that I was fired. He explained to me that a man who held the insurance policy on the store had watched me work and was afraid that because of my stature, I would surely be injured doing the work of carrying groceries to customer's cars and stocking the shelves in the evening. I was stunned. I was born with a defective aortic valve which resulted in a heart murmur. I also went through rheumatic fever twice as a young child. My parents were told more than once that I would not survive past five or six years of age. When I was fired at age fifteen and my physicality once more was brought into question, I was really hurt. My parents looked out for me as I grew up but pretty much let me do what I wanted to do; my heart issue was on my mind, and theirs, as I matured. 

Dad picked me up at the grocery store, and we had a long talk. I knew there was a small set of barbells in our garage, quietly rusting away in a dark corner. The next day, in my sophomore geometry class, I wrote a “contract” with God. I promised God there were things I would never do, namely, use alcohol, tobacco, or illicit drugs. I promised to do whatever I could to get strong, and I promised that whatever came of these promises, I would give Him the glory—and I started lifting those little weights. 

At age sixteen, I entered my first weightlifting contest. It was a small affair held in a barn/tool shed, and it attracted about twenty men to test their strength in what were then called the "odd" lifts, consisting of the barbell curl, the barbell press, and the clean and jerk. I was the only teenager there. I did not win anything, but I remember those men being encouraging and somewhat impressed by what I could lift as a 115-pound kid with only a year of crude, unsupervised training. 

This inauspicious start to lifting weights, plus the interest in the martial arts I would cultivate beginning at age nineteen in Cincinnati, resulted in my learning several important principles for life and have given me the opportunity to preach and witness to multiple thousands of people during the last sixty years in venues I would have not thought possible. Besides churches, I have performed and spoken in summer camps (Christian and otherwise), jails, prisons, schools, various civic organizations, Christian campus groups, and leadership training seminars.  

My training and competing have seen me compete in three different disciplines: power lifting, Olympic weightlifting, and martial arts. In power lifting (squat, bench press, and dead lift), I held many records in the 50-55-year age group in the 132 lb. class. At that age and weight, I could squat and deadlift three times my bodyweight and bench press nearly double my bodyweight. Those lifts were done drug free and under very strict judging in national competitions. I did not start competitive powerlifting until I was nearly 48 years old. I did so at the urging of my son who is an incredible powerlifter in his own right. 

In Olympic lifting (press, snatch and clean and jerk; the press being discontinued around 1972), I competed in many local and state meets and five national meets. In the national meets, I won two silver medals and three bronze medals against competition from all over the United States and its territories. I competed in the pre-Olympic qualifying meet in New York in 1979 and did my best but fell short of an Olympic berth. Throughout the years, although I was dedicated to power lifting and Olympic weightlifting, I never lost my interest in the martial arts. 

As I write this, I am closing in on 78 years of life. As noted, I became interested in martial arts/karate at age nineteen and began training in that discipline. The weights pulled me back into their world periodically, and I trained in powerlifting for several years and Olympic lifting for several more years. The bottom line is I trained hard in the "iron sports" for an aggregate of about twenty years, but I have trained in the martial arts for more than forty years and achieved a Seventh-Degree Black Belt. I have fought full contact to the knockout or submission, participated in kumite, kata and weapons, kata in many tournaments, and competed as recently as December 2023. I won two first place trophies in the “old man’s” division (sixty plus) in that tournament. 

God, over and over again, has answered the request made to Him by a young boy sitting in a geometry class in a country school in Indiana sixty plus years ago. I had my aortic valve replaced near my 59th birthday, and my surgeon told me in no uncertain terms that my life of exercise and discipline had spared my life given the compromised condition of my heart at birth. 

I did not neglect the training of my mind during the last nearly sixty years. I have earned a bachelor’s degree, three master’s degrees, a Doctorate and have used what I have learned as a youth minister, an associate/teaching minister, a pulpit/lead/senior minster (thirty-four years), a church consultant, a full-time Bible college professor, an adjunct professor, and as a guest speaker in many churches across America. As I write this, I work part-time for a church in central Indiana as their preacher and teach part-time for a small seminary also located in central Indiana. 

I have learned many valuable lessons from my training during the last sixty years-training that I still go through on a regular basis. Allow me to share some of those lessons. 

Play the Cards You Are Dealt 

In life, we play the cards we were dealt. God makes no mistakes. He made me the way I am for a reason. He put me in the household in which I was raised for a reason. He put it into my heart to serve Him as a minister for a reason. There is no way, regardless of the amount of training I could have undergone, I would ever play in the NBA, the NFL, or in MLB. I learned to set my goals within my limitations. Realistic goals spurred me on decade after decade. Have you taken time to honestly assess your various capacities whether they be your physical assets, your mental assets, your financial assets, etc.? Has it occurred to you what God can do with you given your realistic potential? It is liberating to realize your potential and realize that potential within certain limitations and then strive to be the very best you can be for the glory of God. Never waste time being jealous or petty concerning the success of other people. I fell into that trap more than once until I realized the truth of Proverbs 14:30 which reminds us, “envy is rottenness to the bones.” 

Do Not Quit 

Shoichi Yokoi was discovered hiding in the jungles of Guam decades after the war was over. This Japanese soldier survived alone for many years after his two fellow soldiers succumbed to the rigors of survival. When he was discovered, he was asked if he knew the war was over. He replied he did indeed know but his Emperor had told him never to surrender. Our Leader has told us in Luke 9:62 that, once we have “put his hand to the plow,” we are not to look back. Jesus said in Matthew 24:13, “he who endures to the end shall be saved.” Paul reminds us in 2 Timothy 4:10 in the case of Demas that those who start the race may not finish the race. 

When I lifted weights at the Central YMCA on Elm Street in Cincinnati, I was part of a small team that competed in local events. There was a chart in the weight room which the lifters were to initial at the completion of their workout. One evening as I entered the weight room, I noticed one of the lifter's names had been X-ed out and someone had written, “Quitter” by his name. I made up my mind in the important things in life, I would not be a quitter. Not in my faith, my future marriage, raising children, my sports goals—I simply would not quit. 

Learn the Value of Repetition 

The value of repetition cannot be overstated for it teaches us to do right by reflex. In 1978, I was invited along with two other weightlifters in my weight class to compete in the first ever American National Sports Festival held in Colorado Springs. We trained under the watchful eye of world class Olympic weightlifting coaches and then competed at the end of the festival. I won a silver medal and was pretty proud of myself. I went back to my dorm room after the competition and celebrated with the types of food I had denied myself for many months. There was a knock at the door. I opened it and there stood Patrick Omori, a weightlifting legend and hero of mine as he was a small man like me. Pat had competed at the highest levels of competition. He asked me if he could come in and talk. I invited him in, and he said, “I watched you lift today.” 

Expecting a compliment, I said, “What did you think?” 

“I came tonight to show you how to do the lifts correctly,” came his unexpected reply.  

My first reaction was to tell him off, but I did not do that and asked for his help. We took the tops off two push brooms and, standing in front of a mirror, he showed me a technique from Bulgaria that consisted of two separate “pulls” on the barbell which would help immensely in the snatch and in the clean. We practiced those unfamiliar moves (unfamiliar to me) scores of times until something clicked, and I was doing the pulls correctly. When we practice doing, saying, and thinking correctly it eventually becomes second nature. Philippians 4:8,9 come to mind here. My suggestion: do the right things, make the right choices over and over and they will become second nature. 

Fear Failure 

Fear can be an asset. When I was training for a fight, I imagined getting into the ring with my opponent, and there was some fear. That fear drove me to train hard. The same with powerlifting and Olympic lifting. In those competitions, there are three judges watching. It is intimidating enough seeing the weight; the spectators can be a source of intimidation and fear; knowing that the judges are watching every more can also arouse fear. That fear, properly channeled and utilized, can be a source of strength. 

The Scriptures are clear concerning some aspects of fear. God is to be feared. The Day of Judgment is to be feared. The judgment we will go through as individuals should cause some fear. Hebrews 10:31 and 2 Corinthians 5:11 are graphic reminders concerning being in the presence of God. The Scriptures also teach us, "the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom..." Psalms 9:10, 111:10, Proverbs 15:33, and Ecclesiastes 12:13 speak of fearing God and how that fear, properly channeled, deepens our respect towards God and our desire to please and serve Him. There is a great emphasis today on God's love, forgiveness, mercy, forbearance and grace. A balance is achieved when we also preach and teach God's wrath, the existence of hell, and a real fear of God. 

Stay Hungry 

The sports I have been involved in all have weight classes for obvious reasons. To “make weight” is part of the competitions I have been in that I abhor. I have competed in the 114, 123, 132, and 148 lb. weight classes in lifting. I fought at about 145-150 which is nearer my “post 55-year-old” bodyweight. To make weight in the lighter classes was, to put it simply, awful. I well remember the first time I dropped from 132, which wasn't too bad, to 114, which was terrible. My wife and our two little children were out of the house. I was alone and was sure I was starving to death when I remembered we had a one-pound box of Whitman's chocolates in the freezer. That treat was to stay in the freezer until my competition was over. I began to think: “a pound of fat is about 3500 calories and one of those little chocolates is only about 75 calories, I'll eat just one.” You know where this is going! To make a long story short, I rationalized that two chocolates would be only 150 calories, three would be only 225 calories, etc., etc. When my wife got home, I had to tell her I had eaten the entire box of chocolates. Did I get sick? Oh, yeah. Was I humbled by my lack of discipline? Yes. Did the chocolates really satisfy? Nope. Not at all. I was ashamed, and I was sick. I learned a valuable lesson: the anticipation of something forbidden is much more than any satisfaction gained by transgression. I should have just stayed hungry. 

Moses was wise to avoid the “passing pleasures of sin” (Hebrews 11:25). Our Scriptures warn us repeatedly the way of sinners is difficult (Proverbs 13:15) and unsatisfying. The trick in sports training is to look past the difficulty with diet, exercise, schedules, etc. and think of the joy of victory. The same is true in life. Look past the temporary in life and see the eternal. Romans 8:18 comes to mind, wherein the great Apostle makes a comparison with what has to be endured in life with what will be enjoyed in eternity. 

My hope is something that has been said here will help and inspire. I know exactly who I am; I'm just an old sinner saved by grace. I have been the recipient of God's goodness and mercy, and I am privileged to share His love with you. 

Dale Holzbauer is in his 59th year of ministry and preaches and teaches every week at the Onward Christian Church in Onward, Indiana where he serves as the minister. He also teaches a class each year for Summit Theological Seminary. He is asked to do a few special engagements each year preaching, teaching, martial arts demos, etc. Satchel Paige said, “Don’t look back; something might be gaining on you.” Dale appreciates that and likes Luke 9:62 even better.