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Does it seem like your spiritual walk could be better described as a limp? If you’re like me, there are times when it seems you’re struggling with the same things all the time.
Are you limping along—spiritually speaking? Does it seem like God is far away, and prayer is unrewarding and dead? When you read the Bible, do you find your mind wandering, as the words run together on the page? Does it seem like a dry history book rather than a live letter to you from the Lord? Has your desire to be involved in ministry grown cold, and instead those avenues of service are more like a duty now than a joy?
Well, you’ve got a spiritual limp. We all get them, and we need to be prepared to deal with them. Most of us want to leave the race when we start limping, don’t we? We figure we just can’t keep going, so we give up and sit on the sidelines or start down another path which looks a little easier. But that’s not how we should deal with a spiritual limp.
I noticed a passage in Hebrews 12 which encouraged me as I thought about my occasional spiritual limps. Verses 12 and 13 tell us “So tighten your loosening grip and steady your wavering stand. Don’t wander away from the path but forge steadily onward. On the right path the limping foot recovers strength and does not collapse…” (Phillips Translation).
Tightening your grip and steadying your stand and staying on the right path require discipline. Discipline without feelings or emotions. Discipline without visible results. The first verse of that 12th chapter of Hebrews tells us we must run with endurance the race marked out for us. Even run the race with a limp, but whatever you do, you are not to sit down, get sidelined or sidetracked.
Let me encourage you to keep running in the right race, even though you’re limping along. Just like professional athletes, sometimes we have to “play hurt,” keep on keepin’ on even though we’re not feeling one hundred percent. Remember that the limping foot is healed by tightening your grip and steadying your stand, not by getting out of the race.