My Wife Went to the Doctor
My wife had her knee looked at by a specialist yesterday. She hurt it right after our youngest was born, but with our move to China, we had never done enough to get it back to health. For the last nine years, some days her knee was fine, but other days she was in pain.
Actually, that’s not quite true. Some days the pain in her knee was tolerable; the other days she was really hurting.
This doctor has been working with my wife twice a week for about a month. The pain has become more consistently manageable allowing our family to go on some hikes together.
Yesterday, the doctor put my wife on a device that read how her muscles reacted during certain movements of her knee. One of the things it showed was that even though her knee was improving, she was still compensating how she walked as if it would hurt. This compensation was now hindering her progress to health.
My Friend Had Trauma Growing Up
This is common. We have a friend who had terrible things happen to her as a girl. People who should have been safe did tragic things to her. She is now far removed from those people and situations, but she still carries the pain. She found a wonderful husband, but her fear of pain keeps her distant from him.
She is a wonderful person. She loves God. But she as trained herself to avoid the potential of pain, and this avoidance keeps her from the potential of true love from her husband.
We Are Blinded By Our Fear
We do this with God all the time. Our fear of what may happen separates us from Him. Adam and Eve hid in the garden because they feared how God would respond to their sin.
- We also fear He may reject us for something.
- We fear He may tell us we are not good enough.
- We fear He will not come through for us.
This fear of possible pain keeps us from God. Our compensating for potential pain is blinding us from having more of God. We are compensating for a pain that is no longer real. Jesus paid it all on the cross. We now have to retrain our minds to believe it to have more of God.
Romans 6:11 tells us to count ourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus. While this is true, we need to believe it. You may not feel dead to sin. You may still feel separate from God. But, we are told to believe and act as if it is true that we are dead to sin and alive to God.
No matter what our experiences may have told us… No matter what we may feel is true… God is for us (Romans 8:31). We are alive in Christ (Galatians 2:20).
The Path Toward Having More of God
How would you live if you really believe God wants to talk to you? If God wasn’t embarrassed by you? If God wasn’t about to punish you? If God was moving circumstances for your God? Because all of these are true and more!
Let’s start acting like God enjoys being with us. Let’s tell our brain that this is true. Imagine how much easier prayer would be if we believe God wanted to connect with us.