Over the last few weeks my back has been a bit grumbly, but last weekend it got really stiff and uncomfortable. I could feel a tight band across my lower back. I couldn’t bend, or sit for long, many positions felt uncomfortable. I am still in what feels like a slow process of recovery! It has restricted and limited what I can do in a variety of ways. The discomfort has also pulled me into unnatural ways of standing as I try to accommodate and adjust to alleviate the pain.
I don’t automatically assume it is “an attack of the enemy”! My first thought is usually about where my lifestyle may have brought this into being. Have I been unwise somewhere? Have I just done too much sitting in uncomfortable chairs, slept in an uncomfortable bed, etc?
I try not to spiritualise everything but the reality is that God is woven throughout all the areas of my life and he is interested in my back, my physical well-being. John writes in verse 2 of his third letter:
Beloved, I pray that all may go well with you and that you may be in good health, as it goes well with your soul.
I do pray, and also ask for prayer, for healing. I believe that he can answer that prayer in an instant, and sometimes he does. However, we are woven together as a whole and we cannot separate the impact of what goes on in our internal world from our physical body, our relationships, or our walk with God. I believe that often God is interested in more than just physical relief in our body.
Jesus spoke truths through everyday things in people’s lives and God speaks frequently to me through my circumstances and everyday things too. I sometimes joke:
Everything’s a sign!
As I pondered the stiffness, the lack of flexibility, the discomfort and the sense of being pulled out of shape, out of true alignment, my inability to stand straight, the sense of restriction and limitation, I was asking:
Holy Spirit, show me anywhere where what is going on in my circumstances is a picture of something in my life you want to address.
Many years ago, I had a much more serious and long term issue with my back which meant a long period of incapacitation and a very slow road to recovery, so because of this my response is gentle movement, and stretching. A lady that I pray with regularly sent me a YouTube video of back stretches at the weekend. Some of them are my automatic go to with this issue, but there were a couple of new ones. I know that God wants to stretch me in new ways so that made me smile. He reminded me that:
Growth is in the stretch
We get comfortable in the ease of the familiar, settling for what we know. When I was a primary school teacher, if I kept giving the children the work they could already do, not only did they get bored and act up, but they stopped learning and growing. To keep moving forward and growing there has to be a sense of stretch, of challenge, then a period of consolidating that new learning by practice until it is part of what is rooted in us and then we are ready for the next step.
I wonder when was the last time you tried something new? I don’t want to settle, to become stagnant. We never stop learning. However, as I looked at the video of stretches, some of the “new” ones, I couldn’t do yet because of the restriction and limitation in my back, it was too painful but as it has loosened a bit, this morning I was able to have a go at all of them.
Sometimes our automatic response to something new is, “I can’t”, often because of fear. The original generation of Israelites missed out on the promised land due to resistance, allowing fear to influence their willingness to follow God’s lead. Frequently through the Old Testament prophets, God laments the stubbornness, the resistance in his people that blocks their ability to walk in the fullness of life with him. It led them into disobedience. We are warned in Hebrews 3:15
As it is said, “Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion.”
We can frame it as something else but resistance to God is foolish in the extreme, ultimately it is rebellion, disobedience. It is our stiff-necked, stubborn pride that leads us to think we know better. Lord, I don’t want to resist you, that does not end well! As I have been walking to help my back strengthen, I have been noticing the flowers and plants and how many are bent over. When I am stiff, limited by my back in this way, I cannot easily bend. There’s that familiar key! James 4 verses 6-10 reminds us:
But he gives more grace. Therefore it says, “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.” Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Be wretched and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom. Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you.
I certainly don’t want to be in any scenario where I’m being resisted by God. There is grace to change, thank you Jesus! We need his help, not least for him to show us what needs to change, where the mindsets, patterns of behaviour, places of “tethering”, restrictions and rigidity exist within me. Hebrews 4:12-13 reminds us:
For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart. And no creature is hidden from his sight, but all are naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must give account.
He speaks right into the core of the issue and sometimes he speaks through our circumstances. His exposure never brings shame; he exposes to bring freedom, to bring release and growth. He is committed to our growth! So maybe you’d like to join me in praying:
Holy Spirit, search me and know me. Reveal anywhere in my life where I am resistant to you, where there is anything in the way I think, what I believe, the ways I do things, what I am unwilling to do or say, where I am unwilling to go, my relationships, my habits, or anything else that limits or restricts me from following where you lead. I renounce and break agreement with staying comfortable and settled, inflexibility, resistance, pride, stubbornness, and limited thinking. I choose to bend my will to yours, I choose to submit to you. Thank you for the grace to let go, the grace to stretch and grow. Thank you that in you, “I can”!
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