Rehab

Physically after our injuries have healed we have to rebuild our muscles in order to function well again.  It takes time.  It takes work.  Those of us who have done it know that it hurts.  Is there a similar experience in recovering from healed spiritual injuries?  I think so.

If you have fallen into sin and you have asked for forgiveness, yes you are forgiven immediately.  The sin is washed away with and under the shed blood of Christ.  However, the consequences of a sin may remain.  The clearest example is that of a pregnancy that is the result of fornication or adultery.  You will be forgiven for the adultery or fornication, washed clean.  However, you will still be a father or a mother of the resulting child.  Trust is another that can take some time to regain.  In the past few years I have consulted companies that have experienced embezzlements.  While one can forgive the embezzler, one would not quickly place that person back into a position to manage one's finances.  

When our kids were younger we read a lot to them.  One of the books we read was The Berenstain Bears and the Truth.  In it the kids learn that a broken trust takes time to regain.  One who betrays your trust spiritually, either by lying to you, or even by teaching false doctrine, can and should be forgiven, but there may be some time and counsel needed, some rehab, prior to re-entry into the race.  This is what Paul was talking about in Galatians 6:1.  We have to restore, rehab, ourselves and those who have fallen.  It is our responsibility as believers.

Healing

For the past several days we have been looking at Paul’s metaphor of a race to describe the Christian life.  Yesterday we looked at the reality that in this race there will be times that we are injured.  It probably goes without saying, but injuries require healing, and healing takes time.

If you are like me, not patient, you do not tolerate the healing process well.  After my last knee surgery I rode my bike 20 miles the next day.  Not the best.  The reality is our bodies take some time to adjust and heal after a surgery.  The same is true spiritually.  Yes, the effects and the process of recovery are different.  But they can take time and like physical injuries, if we do not embrace the healing process there can be further injury.  In the case of spiritual injury, that injury can be inflicted on others.

Spiritual healing requires the Holy Spirit, the grace of God, and the blood of Christ.  We may have to forgive, reconcile relationships.  That can be hard and painful work, much harder than the physical rehab after a knee surgery, for that pain is deep in the soul.  Problem is, like a knee, if we do not go through the process, neither the knee nor our Christian life will function well again.  The knee will not flex.  Spiritually we will be beset with bitterness, lack of trust, self protection, anger, to name a few.

It is not a good way to live.

Injured

Walking across campus at the University of Tennessee one afternoon my right leg locked. Would not bend. Did not hurt; just would not work. I felt around my knee and there was bump on the back of the knee. I pushed the bump and my knee started working again. Took about four more steps and my knee locked up again. This time the bump was in the front. I pushed it and my knee started working again. I was training for a marathon at the time. I thought to myself, "I probably should not run my 14 miles this evening."

A few weeks later I was recovering from knee surgery. The doctor came in and told me that I was through running. In exercise and athletics injuries happen. You may have read about the impact of multiple concussions on NFL and NHL players. Injury happens. Paul uses athletic imagery as a metaphor for the Christian life in 2 Timothy 2:5; 1 Corinthians 9:24 - 27; and the writer of Hebrews in, 12:1 - 2. It follows that their are injuries in the Christian life as there are in sports, but there is a difference. The injuries are spiritual, not physical.

Spiritual abuse, false teaching, legalism, sin against you by a brother or sister, can cause great pain and take you out of the race for a time. As with injuries in sports, these types of injuries have to be dealt with. If a sports injury is ignored, it can become permanently disabling. That is the case as well with spiritual injury; that injury has to be treated. If not as with the sports injury the spiritual injury can become disabling, in the form of bitterness, and shipwrecked faith.

We need Doctors to treat our sports injuries. We need spiritual brothers and sisters to deal with spiritual injuries.