Brace Yourselves for Your Best Life

Have you ever noticed that the “hardest” words to hear are often the truest, most profound and ultimately life-giving?

Your Best Life

The internet is absolutely FULL of people promising you your best life, success and phenomenal growth if you follow a certain success formula.

Not to say that that type of growth DOESN’T happen. Over all, though, it often seems trivial and shallow, ESPECIALLY when that message is coming from a Christian messenger.

And yet, it seems to be rampant in the Church, especially in the US.

Pain Avoidance

True, deep and profound “success”, healing and growth often follows along a much more narrow, sometimes painful or challenging road.

During my recovery from a fractured wrist, many word pictures have arisen in my soul, some of which are hard to hear, but nevertheless vital to understand in our following after Jesus, Who walked this road before us and leads us on daily.

A brief update on my condition (as I originally wrote this … you will be reading this after several more weeks of healing have passed).

The surgeon had removed my splint shortly after the day I recorded the “It is Well With My Soul” episode (# 44).

My wrist was in a removable brace since then, with a follow up visit made for one month from that date. The brace could be removed for showering, etc.

Here’s the thing I noticed during this time. After he first removed the splint, there was a welcomed decrease in pain.

When writing this, it was about two weeks since then (four weeks since wrist surgery). I also traveled (by plane) from NJ to FL and back during those two weeks for a pre-scheduled trip to celebrate my Mom’s birthday. That was an absolute DELIGHT to be able to make that trip.

At the same time, traveling adds stress by its very nature, to say nothing of the physical strain on a recently broken bone.

After wearing the brace for a couple of weeks (often during the day, and always while sleeping), the difference between having it ON and OFF became prominent. Having it off felt MUCH less painful, more free and natural. Having it on felt constricting, often aggravating the sore spots.

So much so, that my inclination was to keep it OFF during as much waking time a possible (which sometimes concerned others, thinking it better to have my wrist in the brace).

What is the Purpose of the Brace?

So, I got thinking and figured I’d call the doctor to get more info. Was the brace more to protect my wrist from getting hit, or moved inadvertently etc., or was it more to keep everything in alignment so it healed in the right way?

If it were the latter, I’d surely be willing to endure the aching pain of the brace until the healing progressed.

From the doctor’s office call-back, it sounded like I should be keeping it on pretty often, and gradually decreasing the time in the brace (when awake) over time. So I began keeping it on more of the time at that point, and working through the achiness.

This is where the spiritual implications hit me.

Quick Fixes

It’s so easy to simply want the “quick fix”. We don’t understand it when spiritual growth and healing takes time, and we CERTAINLY don’t get it when there’s PAIN involved in the process.

It’s so much easier to take off the spiritual “brace” in our lives to avoid the pain. Yet in doing so, are we risking interfering with our complete restoration and reformation?

Sometimes the Lord asks us to do things that feel like that brace. Constricting our freedom, aggravating and pointing out the sore and tender areas in our hearts.

The brace acts to keep us on track as we heal and grow. That brace could be anything from confessing and dealing with our sin, forming habits of prayer, scripture reading, listening to loved ones’ rebukes, etc. Things that may point up the tender areas in our hearts at first, but later yield the fruit of a life well-lived in Christ.

Holding Our Hands

And as in the rest of this little podcast/blog series, with the image of us being members of the Body of Christ … when one of us is going through the constrictions of such a “brace”, is it the inclination of the other parts of the body to decrease that member’s pain by removing those constricting, temporary guardrails that would keep their healing on track?

We hate to see each other in pain, yet it is sometimes wise to endure that difficult season, holding each other’s hand, so that Christ can complete His mysterious work in us. It takes such spiritual insight and sensitivity to know when to alleviate a brother or sister’s heartache, and when to rather simply endure together.

As it says in 1 Corinthians 12:26a “If one part suffers, every part suffers with it;…” So of course, just as it would have been my natural inclination to ditch this brace completely to stop the achiness it brought, that would not have been the wisest thing to do at that point. It would be wiser to endure the discomfort, with the hope of a completely restored wrist, able to do the work for which it was designed (in my case, to play the guitar).

One thing I know. Jesus is ALWAYS there to hold our hands as we endure the grief, sorrow, disappointment or other challenges of life, while He, in the process, creates healthy, whole, compassionate and effective sons and daughters of God who reflect His image..

Feeling Our Pain

In fact, He endured the ULTIMATE pain for us, truly “feeling our pain” so that we can have eternal health and spiritual freedom.

Since the children have flesh and blood, he too shared in their humanity so that by his death he might destroy him who holds the power of death–that is, the devil–and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death. For surely it is not angels he helps, but Abraham’s descendants. For this reason he had to be made like his brothers in every way, in order that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in service to God, and that he might make atonement for the sins of the people. Because he himself suffered when he was tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted.

(Hebrews 2:14-18)

The apostle Paul speaks of the profound mystery of Christ abiding in us, His “Body” as we also suffer at times for each others’ sake:

Now I rejoice in what was suffered for you, and I fill up in my flesh what is still lacking in regard to Christ’s afflictions, for the sake of his body, which is the church. I have become its servant by the commission God gave me to present to you the word of God in its fullness–the mystery that has been kept hidden for ages and generations, but is now disclosed to the saints. To them God has chosen to make known among the Gentiles the glorious riches of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.

(Colossians 1:24-27)

Yes, it’s a hard thing to hear that some things in this life are going to take seasons of challenge and even grief.

Choices

If we choose to seek after OUR “best life”, avoiding pain to our own detriment–dulling it, discounting it and devaluing its purpose, we will reap a life that is less than HIS Life.

I suppose the choice is ours.

For now, I’m wearing my brace and enduring the achiness.

Kind of reminds me of my Savior and helps me identify in a tiny way with the utter agony His wrists (hands) endured as He hung on that Cross for me.

So grateful that He offers each of us TRUE and everlasting Life and wholeness in Him.

In whatever you or a loved one are enduring this day, may Jesus hold your hand, sustaining you throughout your healing, and fashioning your heart into one like His own.

Please be sure to join me next month as we continue on with this series inspired by my fractured wrist recovery and contemplating our roles in the Body of Christ (subscribe and/or sign up for my emails at shiningriver.com/newsletter .

Here is another song I’m sharing (Just a Closer Walk with Thee) from that concert in Ocean Grove, NJ on the day I broke my wrist. I pray that it will encourage you to walk firmly with Jesus through whatever challenges you face.