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Fit for the Adventure
Along the road of life, sometimes you must steer toward a place that you'd rather avoid.
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Along the road of life, sometimes you must steer toward a place that you'd rather avoid. I went to one of those places recently—the hospital for partial knee replacement surgery. It amazes me that this procedure is even possible. In a world where nobody has figured out how to make the plastic bags in cereal boxes easy to open and close, doctors can go into my leg to replace worn parts and then re-seal it. I felt relief after this dreaded surgery, but only for a moment. No one had explained that an even more daunting challenge comes from two words that follow the procedure—physical therapy. When I fully regained my senses a couple days after surgery, I discovered that my brand new knee was nowhere close to being ready to use. I learned a lot about physical therapy the hard way—while in the midst of it. And during those long, painful weeks, I realized that strong parallels exist between the regimen of rehabilitation and ministry life. What I Learned from Physical TherapyOne clear similarity is that therapy is hard—and so is ministry. For some people, that probably was a comforting statement to read, because ministry success attracts far more attention than its struggles. The truth is, when ministry is a challenge, that isn't an indication of failure or ineptitude. It's simply a reality. There will be tough times of conflict, disappointment, and loss—so ministry requires a heart and soul that are alive and full to the point of resiliency. I also learned that therapy requires a personal commitment to work though pain and strain that no one can do for me—in other words, I must practice self-leadership to succeed. Same goes for ministry. My years in church work help me see this issue clearly: that the greatest gift I can bring to my ministry—kids, volunteers, and paid staff—is a heart that is full and surrendered to God. For me to live with God exclusively in the center takes constant attention that is punctuated with hard decisions. Self-leadership involves the options each of us face and forms the backdrop to important lessons we must learn about choices that involve perspective, pace, and load. PerspectiveThe first challenge I faced in physical therapy involved knee flexibility. My lone goal in this area was critical: a 110-degree knee bend. During hours of painful stretching, a thought kept racing through my mind. I wondered whether I bend my knee—give all my worship—to God alone? The honest answer was no, which pushed me to dig deeper and look at my life from a new perspective. I realized that I must choose to worship only God, but many times I don't. I had to start by admitting to what motivates me—an exercise that revealed my worship goes in many directions other than God. Sometimes I bow down to the approval of others, which gives them too much power in my life. Other times I kneel at the altar of image management—intentionally projecting the impression that all is well, even when that's a lie. Both of these idols stem from a fear of what people think about me—which can grip me so tight that sinful words, ideas, or actions spray out. I also saw that material things can capture my heart's desire. |        
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