Spiritual Exercise

Following knee surgery a few weeks ago I was referred to a physiotherapist for further help. Having had to subject myself to physiotherapy once before, I was dreading my next session. The day came and, having gone through the obligatory, “Tell me when it hurts,” stage of the process, I was asked to walk up and down the room. With a professional eye fully focussed on my gait, she simply commented, “Yes. We are going to have to teach you to walk properly again.”

Now this came as quite a shock to me. I thought I walked fine. In fact, I love walking. I walk lots. I have been walking for a long time! But she was adamant, “You are compensating for your bad knee and your body can’t remember how not to.” And so she taught me how to walk again with exaggerated steps to force my body into submission against its memory of the past years.

Alongside this came a list of exercises to do to build up the muscles around the knee that have been depleted due to this compensation. It seems to me that the essence of physiotherapy is to push you just into the uncomfortable zone until it becomes relatively easy and then you change the exercises to push you further. Whilst difficult and uncomfortable at the time, the benefits of these exercises are incredible and bring hope for the future.

Many of us have been blessed by receiving a measure of healing from God, either physical, emotional, spiritual or a mixture of all three. But have we responded to this by sitting and waiting for the next thing that God will do or have we put our will into line and worked through the results of the pain? Have we willingly re-trained ourselves and recognised the compensations we made in our own lives to protect ourselves from the pain? Are we actively choosing to push through into uncomfortable positions that are good for us and bring us the full healing? If you are sat waiting for God to complete a work in you, maybe He is waiting for you to take responsibility for your healing and start doing your spiritual exercise.

Prayer: Lord, I want to press on toward the goal. I don’t want to stay where I am. Please show me how to move forward and to receive all that You have for me. Please continue to bring Your full healing to me as I take up my responsibility in the healing process. Amen.