Discipleship and Physical Therapy (Hebrews 12:12,13)
“Therefore, lift your drooping hands and strengthen your weak knees, 13 and make straight paths for your feet, so that what is lame may not be put out of joint but rather be healed.”
After I had surgery on my ankle, anyone I knew who had had that sort of joint repair done told me, “Do not slack off on your physical therapy!” If you don’t work hard to retrain your body after injury and repair, you end up falling into old (or new) bad patterns that can lead to slow or unfinished recovery. Worse, you might end up reinjuring the part that was repaired.
Here, the writer of Hebrews speaks about discipleship in language that sounds a lot like physical therapy. We need to take on good habits, like using weak muscles over and over again to strengthen them. The good habits lead to good practices and behaviors that we want to encourage in our lives. Also, we need to set healthy boundaries and live within them to encourage consistent positive behaviors and reactions. The way a brace or an exercise machine can train us to make correct movements through repetition (“make straight paths”), healthy boundaries, and good habits train us towards the behaviors we want to see in our lives.
This ties into what he has already exhorted us to, with the talk of running the race, casting off hindrances and entanglements, and receiving correction well. We go to the next level through practice and training. That is what discipleship is like.
After I had surgery on my ankle, anyone I knew who had had that sort of joint repair done told me, “Do not slack off on your physical therapy!” If you don’t work hard to retrain your body after injury and repair, you end up falling into old (or new) bad patterns that can lead to slow or unfinished recovery. Worse, you might end up reinjuring the part that was repaired.
Here, the writer of Hebrews speaks about discipleship in language that sounds a lot like physical therapy. We need to take on good habits, like using weak muscles over and over again to strengthen them. The good habits lead to good practices and behaviors that we want to encourage in our lives. Also, we need to set healthy boundaries and live within them to encourage consistent positive behaviors and reactions. The way a brace or an exercise machine can train us to make correct movements through repetition (“make straight paths”), healthy boundaries, and good habits train us towards the behaviors we want to see in our lives.
This ties into what he has already exhorted us to, with the talk of running the race, casting off hindrances and entanglements, and receiving correction well. We go to the next level through practice and training. That is what discipleship is like.
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