We often wear blinders with regard to our psychological and spiritual frailties. Even when we want to navigate the murky waters of our own hearts, we find it difficult to traverse them.
It is not quite so difficult with our physical frailties. Eventually, they will find us out. For example, I know my legs are fairly strong, as I run quite a bit. I have done a decent number of pushups over the past couple of months, so I knew I was doing alright in the chest and triceps. My core is not the strongest, but situps have kept me fairly fit in that area.
"Surely my shoulders and biceps are strong," I told myself, as they used to be some of muscles I worked the most (years ago). Yet, I have now had numerous Cross Fit classes reveal to me that I can do less pullups than some of my female counterparts. I will work hard to remedy this quickly (so I'm not left hanging from the pullup bar in exhaustion again!), but for the time being, as it pertains to shoulders and biceps, I am a wuss.
What I appreciate about the easier exposure of physical frailties is that they clue us into the fact that we have more complex psychological and spiritual frailties that we're often missing.
God wrestled me down to the mat once and for all in the summer before my freshman year of high school by initially exposing my physical frailties. I went on a bike trip with a youth group from Washington DC to Nags Head, NC. Close to 500 miles in about six days. To that point, I had been in lots of fights and brawls and thought of myself as pretty tough. 500 miles of biking quickly diasbused me of that notion, as girls who were even smaller than me pedaled past me over and over, ringing their little bells and shouting "Good job!" (which wasn't encouraging to me).
Over the course of that trip, as I pedaled mile after mile, I had plenty of time to think about my physical weakness and how that was analogous to my spiritual weakness. I was not a victim of my broken upbringing, nor was I a conquerer of my past. If I had physical limitations, what about spiritual? What about my sinful nature, which was clearly before my eyes? What hope did I have before a just and holy God whose standard was infinitely more daunting than a bike trip?
In my physical brokenness, I embraced my spiritual brokenness. And in my spiritual brokenness, I was embraced by the Healer of hearts broken by sin, Jesus Christ.
I have lived more than half my life since that point. Yet it was then that I truly started living. I joke with people (to my wife's great displeasure) that with my last birthday, I had reached the halfway point in my life. Where I live that long or longer, I have enjoyed a blessed life. Even a minute of my life in Christ has made every day I have walked upon this earth a meaningful one.
Off to meet with a fellow chaplain and then conduct some counseling!
FYI, I have re-launched my unit blog at sustainedbyforce.blogspot.com if any of you want to take a peak at the sermon summaries, thoughts of the day, and updates I give my soldiers around the country.
