JP: Being Stretched

JP Writes:

As many of you are aware, for the the last 3 years I've been plagued with some pretty severe back pain from time to time. My first episode occurred while in North Carolina for work. The morning I was to leave to come home my back went out, and I was faced with 2 options - 1) Lie there and wait for the maid to come find me in my underwear and socks on the floor or 2) Dress as best I could and drive home from Hickory. Somehow I managed choice #2. After checking out of the hotel under my alias of the Hunchback of Notre Dame, I began the drive home. The normal 4 hour drive ended up taking 8-1/2 hours. At one point, I stopped at convenience store for gas and Advil. As I attempted to walk/crawl inside the store, the cashier came outside to ask if she needed to call 911. I gave her my credit card and told her, no, just bring me some Advil and a Diet Coke, and I would crawl back to my car and wait for her.

Nowadays, I'm usually good for an episode about every four months or so. These attacks are usually brought on by such strenuous activities as pulling up socks, putting on underwear, or picking up a pencil size twig in the driveway. I know, Tuffy, old age. Usually after about a week of stretching and moving I am able to go about normal activity. Until that time I contort my body into a position that I am comfortable in and relatively pain free.

Well, while moving some boxes in the garage recently I triggered it again and was down and out. No one to blame but myself. However, this time I received some professional help. One of our friends in our home group happens to be a Physical Therapist, and she offered to show me some exercises and new stretches. And to my surprise, she didn't focus on the bigger, major muscles in the stomach and back. We focused on the smaller seemingly more insignificant muscles around the spine and in the pelvis region. Also, these weren't long painful stretches, but slight subtle flexing. If we constantly "fired" and triggered these muscles, then they would eventually become trained to automatically fire and kick in when needed. The pain from the initial injury had caused them to actually shut down. The good news is that they could be retrained to do what they were designed to do.

As I lay there this week "firing and stretching", the Lord spoke to me. His desire is to stretch us. He wants us to come out of the comfort zone that we've created. We've contorted ourselves so that we can still fit into the world while our hearts desire is to have more of God. We look like the Hunchback of Notre Dame and don't even know it. People from both sides are running to us wanting to know if they need to call 911. And, just like me, we just want to medicate the pain and try to comfort ourselves with things that bring us ease or pleasure and continue on our journey. We fear that these stretches will be drastic, painful, dramatic, and uncomfortable.

The truth is that, yes, it can be that way. God's ways are not our ways, and He comes and moves in ways that seem weird, strange, and painful to us. We don't like it when this happens because it's not how we've set God up to work. However, the Old and New Testaments are littered with examples of the Lord moving in bizarre extreme ways. But, most often His stretches come in slight and subtle ways. They come when we surrender our will and desires to the desires that He has for our lives. Everything He does is out of love for us. He desires to give us the better things in exchange for the things of this world, just as we desire to give our children better things. He gives of Himself as we ask. But are we to receive these new stretches blindly? By no means. 1 Thessalonians 5 tells us to test everything and to hold onto the good. Or to put it another way, "chew up the meat and spit out the bones." But likewise, we are not to be like small children who turn up their noses because it doesn't look or smell like they want it to be. The milk of our childhood in Christ shouldn't satisfy us. He wants us to desire and seek the solid food. The key is to be tasting, chewing, and spitting. The Lord's escargot and caviar is there for us, but He will not force it upon us. Just like He didn't force the manna into the Israelite's mouths. They had to make the effort to go and pick it up. He just wants us to open our hearts to take a taste.

So, we need to ask ourselves, are we satisfied with the World's Pizza , Pasta, and Dessert Buffet bar and just stretching our stomachs? Or do we desire to eat at the Lord's Buffet and exercise with Him as trainer?

"Taste and see that the Lord is good!" - Psalm 34:8

Jeff