Back Surgery Metaphors of the Christian Life

My journey toward reconstructive back surgery began years before 2016. Cortisone shots in my lower back reduced the pain and inflammation, but they were temporary measures, never fixing the big picture. After air travel alone in January and again in February, after slinging computer bags into the overhead bins and pulling bags from the baggage carousel, it was clear that something was wrong.

http://www.teachpe.com/anatomy/the_spine.php

As a fibromyalgia sufferer, it’s sometimes hard to know if pain is more than just a spike in ‘regular’ pain.  For a while I dismissed the pain in my hips, lower back, buttocks. My right quad would go numb when standing for too long. Tingles would cascade down my legs. When I woke on March 9 with a massive muscle spasm from my lower back to behind my knee, my husband said, “Now will you go to the doctor?”

So I did, finally. After yet another cortisone shot in my left lower back and an x-ray showing a ‘bone spur’ on the L4 vertebra in the lumbar region, the physician’s assistant requested an MRI from the insurance company. If you follow me on Blasting News, you’ve read that story.

How is all of this a metaphor for the Christian Life?

First, you can’t go about changing a problem until you realize you have a problem. As non-Christians, we all must come to the conclusion that something is wrong in our lives. All the Tylenol Extra Strength doses would never fix the cause of my pain. Once I knew that the pain had a specific cause, I knew I had to fix it. Sin in our lives, yes even Christians sin, can never be repaired without the Holy Physician’s help. Only He can remove our sin as far as the east is from the west. Until He excises my sin problem, my constant missteps without Him, I continue to stumble and fail to live a life focused on Him instead of dwelling on myself.

Guest Author Ken Tatum!

Who Is My Enemy?

“You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’  But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your Father in heaven.    Matthew 5:43-45a (NIV).

In what we usually call the Sermon on the Mount Jesus frequently upended traditional thoughts on moral actions, thoughts and perspectives.  In the passage just quoted He went to an extreme of which I doubt anyone in His audience would have even dreamed.  Many, if not most, in His Jewish audience would have known of the Old Testament command found in Leviticus (19:18) to “love your neighbor”.  And I suspect many would have just assumed that the “hate your enemy” part of this “traditional” statement was also Biblical.  We now know, of course, that it is not a quote from Scripture, but rather simply the natural human extrapolation to what we might want the Old Testament command to be.  So we modern Christians breathe a sigh of relief and say “Of course we are to love our neighbors and of course we should love our enemies.”  But do we ever go the next step in our thought processes and ask the hard question: who does Jesus really mean by these categories of neighbor and enemy?

One expert in the Mosaic Law did ask the first half of this question.  In Luke 10 we read about an encounter with Jesus where he asked Jesus what he must do to inherit eternal life.  In addition to the command to love the Lord your God with all your being Jesus also quoted the Leviticus passage of loving your neighbor.  The man then asked Jesus the obvious question, “Who is my neighbor?”  In response Jesus shared the famous parable of the Good Samaritan, presumably to show the man who his neighbor was.

As He finished His story Jesus asked the law expert a reverse question.  Obviously Jesus wanted to find out if the man had truly understood and ‘gotten’ the point!  So He asked the man if he now knew who his neighbor was.  Correct?  No, Jesus’ question was not worded in the expected form.  Instead He asked who “acted as” a neighbor, and not “who is” your neighbor.  Why would Jesus not answer the man in a simple and straightforward manner?

I believe He was trying to change the man’s thought process from defining everyone else as a specific type of person to determining what type of person he himself was.  Which matters more?  Who some individual is to me, or who I am to that individual?  What category I place a person in, or how I treat the person?  I cannot change that other individual, but I can change my attitudes and actions toward that person.  So, for me, the important point is how I live and act.  Am I a neighbor?

But that is only half of the pertinent question.  Just as Jesus said to love your neighbor, He also said to love your enemy.  So is it not also important to ask who is my enemy?  How might Jesus answer that question?  I won’t presume to guess what parable He might tell to illustrate His meaning, but I can guess how He might word His question back to us at the end of the story.  Would He ask “Who then was the enemy of the main character?”  Or would He ask “Who acted as an enemy to others?”

The first question would fit within our natural human impulses to put people into nice, neat categories.  But if Jesus discouraged us from placing people into a neighbor category, would He not do the same regarding enemies?  I believe, more likely, that He would want us to ask ourselves “Toward whom are we acting as an enemy?”  “Who are we an enemy to?”

As with the neighbor question the important detail is not the status of someone else, but rather the status of our own thoughts and actions.  How am I treating another individual?  Am I loving them, being compassionate for their hurts, and caring for their deep concerns?  Or am I actively hating them?  Disparaging them?  Saying all manner of evil against them?  Pushing them into ghettos and slums of their native lands?

These days we hear a lot of talk from people who claim the name of Christ about the United States having many enemies.  They name specific nations, people groups, or individuals.  I will not speculate on whether any of these really are enemies.  But Jesus said that if we really are children of God the Father, we are to love them anyway.   And if love is actually a verb rather than a noun, then our love needs to be active.  Calling them derogatory names and telling them to stay away is the opposite of love.  In fact, Jesus directly addressed such things earlier in the Sermon, relating the command to not murder to anger and name-calling (Matt. 5:21-22).

In short, the question to ask ourselves is “Do we truly want to be children of the Father?”  If so, we must love.  Actively.  Everyone.  Is there a risk to doing this?  Absolutely!  But I believe Jesus himself took the ultimate risk when He died for us.  Dare we, His children, not imitate our Lord?

Deanna Nowadnick's Signs in Life: Finding Direction in Our Travels with God

Deanna Nowadnick’s second book Signs in Life: Finding Direction in Our Travels with God is an introspective look at the ways God makes himself known in her life. Using traffic signs as chapter titles, the reader can relate to the experiences Nowadnick has had. Each chapter also has five questions at the end to lead the reader to apply the lessons learned in his/her life.

As with her previous work Fruit of My Spirit, Signs in Life is Nowadnick's testimony of her day by day walk with Christ. While experiencing God, life gets messy sometimes, especially when we blow right through the traffic signs. Anyone who has tried to walk with Christ can relate to the unfortunate consequences of speeding, missing a sign, or choosing to ignore a sign.

Two particular passages struck me.

“Chapter 5, No U-Turn” was one such passage. In discussing her difficulty in relying on God in some situations, particularly one that seemed hazardous, she realizes that ‘letting go and letting God’ is more than bumper sticker theology. She states, “[I]f we want to experience God’s glory, be it thunder, a beautiful vista, or a new opportunity in life, we have to let go of the past and let God show us the future. In life there are no U-turns.” In this same vein, she quotes a plaque she purchased during the experience in this chapter. It says: ‘You can’t start the next chapter of your life if you keep reading the last one’ (49).

“Chapter 8, Road Narrows” was another such passage. Nowadnick had rebellious relationship with her dad with her mom running interference. When her mom died, Nowadnick claimed Anne Lamott’s advice of either being right or being kind. She chose to spend her father’s two-year good-bye a time being kind. “With God’s help, I was able to practice being kind. …[K]indness became tolerance, and tolerance became understanding. Understanding became acceptance, and acceptance became love, a messy, imperfect love encased in my own messier version of grace. …that narrow lane of life’s six-lane interstate, that lane in which we travel at the speed of love” (80).

Nowadnick’s transparency throughout is fresh and encouraging. Her application of lessons learned is natural, humorous, and not forced. Signs in Life is a challenge to how you see God and His lessons for your life. Take the challenge and read Signs in Life. Find it in Amazon, and Barnes & Noble.

I was provided a free copy for an honest review.