This summer, my fibromyalgia as well as a new joy (hear massive amounts of sarcasm), a pinched nerve in my hip, have made stretching a daily, sometimes hourly necessity. For those of you without the experience of fibro, it both makes everything tight and movement difficult and painful. The pinched nerve, in its attempt to protect my body from future injury, has further tightened my hamstrings and muscles near my hip. Without stretching, I would be immobile.

In life, physically, mentally, and spiritually, we need to stretch. Stretching our minds keeps us ready to learn. Stretching our spirits helps us become more like our Savior. But just like with the body, needed stretches can be uncomfortable, repetitious, and sometimes, downright painful.

But without them, we reach a point where we can no longer move.

Repeatedly in the Exodus account, Moses was told to stretch. To stretch out his hand and proclaim the locusts, the dark, and many of the other plagues. In the end, he was told to stretch his hand over the seas—first to divide them, and then to send them crashing back down on the Egyptians. But yet, in the song of worship and deliverance, we learn that Moses stretched, not only in obedience to God, but on behalf of God. In truth, in the heavenly realities, each and every stretching miracle belonged to God and God alone. “You stretched out your right hand; the earth swallowed them.” (Exodus 15:12)

Later in the book of Joshua, after Moses is gone, Joshua’s hand gets to represent the hand of his Creator in the conquest of the Promised Land.

Elijah stretched across the dead boy—offering everything he was and all he had to God to restore the widow’s treasure. In the dedication of the temple, Solomon begs God to acknowledge the prayers of any who stretch out their hands in pleading hope to the temple. “…whatever prayer, whatever plea is made by any man or by all your people Israel, each knowing his own affliction and his own sorrow and stretching out his hands toward this house, then hear from heaven your dwelling place and forgive and render to each whose heart you know, according to all his ways, for you, you only, know the hearts of the children of mankind.” (2 Chronicles 6:29-30)

God, Scripture echoes, stretched out the heavens. If His stretch has that much power, why don’t we stretch towards Him when we need anything? If we need understanding, he offers to stretch out to us with His wisdom. (see Proverbs 1) And, on multiple occasions, Jesus only healed if the person asking for healing stretched out.

Stretching isn’t our natural inclination. Especially in the spiritual. We’re more likely to curl in on ourselves in pity and hide. Isn’t that what Adam and Eve did at first when caught in their sin? When we stretch out, we acknowledge God’s sovereign power and our lack. We proclaim that without Him, we can do nothing. Without Him, we can’t “live and move and have our being” as Paul quoted on the Areopagus.

As I stretched my muscles today, I thought of the God who stretched out the heavens, stretches out to rescue us, and let his arms be stretched upon a cross.

Please Lord, remind me that I need to stretch to You.

Not enough comments this week, so the Guzzy Goofball copy is still in the running. Remember, the Wednesday after Labor Day one of the commenters from the summer will get a complete print set of the Talbott Family mysteries and a $25 Amazon card. Keep commenting for a chance to win!

We’ve had much delightful company this summer. This week ended our visit with our son’s wonderful girlfriend, Sabine. We thoroughly enjoyed her visit.

But I’ve also had company I didn’t want this summer. The company of pain. It has been messing with my rest, my sleep, my motivation, and so on.

Therefore, I’m doing something today that I RARELY do. I’m recycling an earlier blog post. This one is just as true as the first time I posted it. In other words, this is still an issue between me and God. Is it better? I’d like to think so. I think I worry less than I used to, but I still worry way too much. And I think, I’m less likely to lunge ahead of God, but I’m sure I still do. Thus, the title and the theme fits. So, onto the recycled post from over ten years ago!

A Lesson I Keep Needing to Re-Learn

I feel really sorry for God sometimes.

I know that he’s big enough to handle anything we creatures do, merciful enough to forgive us, and patient enough to provide us with new learning opportunities, but if he wasn’t perfect the frustration levels would surely skyrocket. I’m quite grateful he is the one and only true God because if he were like some of the mythological gods, I’m sure I would have been lightning zapped by now.

Over the years of following my Lord, one particular area has plagued my growth. It results in two sets of behaviors which can hide the truth of the sin. The problem is I have issues with trusting God.

Oh, I talk a good game. And I even believe it. My head knows all the Bible truths about God’s integrity and holiness. He keeps his word. Has throughout all of history. But still for some reason my heart and soul refuse to believe those facts. Instead, I act in one of two ways.

Worry. This is actually the inaction reaction. Instead of trusting God or doing anything to change my attitude, (like pray), I agonize over what might be. This becomes particularly troublesome in the wee hours of the night. A thought wakes me up, often a thought about one of my sons, and instead of praying, the worry cycle starts. It feeds upon itself until each worry is out of proportion to the original thought. At this point, I often give in and pray because if I don’t, I won’t get any more sleep.

Self-sufficiency. This definitely means taking action. But this path to action goes back to the garden and the original fall. Here, my path says: God, I’ve got this. I can be god for this activity or this objective. I know good and evil and I have decided that path A is better than the path B you seem to be leading me towards. So I’ll take care of it.

Either of these can look good on the outside looking in. The second can look like I’m a hard worker, getting things done. They can even look like godly things. The first can look like honest concern and caring.

But God reminds me of the truth when I get serious. I need to trust him.

And he’ll keep me in school until I learn that truth.

This week’s winner is Sarah Taylor. Sarah, email me at [email protected] with your address so I can get your books off to you!

Next week’s prize offering will be a copy of Guzzy Goofball and the Homeschool Play from Outer Space. If you have kids or grandkids in the 7-12 age range, be sure to comment for a chance to win it!

I’ve studied French since the 7th grade. Most of my life in other words. I know and understand a lot about the language. I’ve taught it to homeschoolers. I’ve read the Bible cover to cover in French twice. I could tell you why some verbs take être (to be) as a helper for the past tense versus the predominant avoir (to have). I could explain some of the nuances of the lovely word chez, which really doesn’t have an English equivalent. Or I can wax on the inadequacies of Le Petit Prince when translated out of the original French. But, other than the summer I lived in France, the language doesn’t live and breathe in me. I can read it, I can hear and understand it (especially if a guy is speaking or singing—women just are harder to hear the breaks between words), but to talk, I have to think too hard. It doesn’t come naturally because I don’t live with it day to day.

Why do I mention all of that? Because I think that’s an image of what it’s like for Christians to think or heaven or our life in Christ here and now. Because we were born in sin, goodness and godliness are foreign languages. We can study them all our lives after accepting Christ. We can know exactly how God wants us to live. We can hear and understand His voice and what His word says to us. But, because we don’t live in it day to day, because we aren’t in heaven yet, it doesn’t come naturally. We have to think too hard. And sometimes, because it’s not easy, because we have to work to speak the language, we fall short. We’re translating the life we know into the language of the life to come and often our native tongue has no way to express the concepts of what will be.

As Paul expresses it in 1 Corinthians 13, “Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I have become sounding brass or a clanging cymbal.” We might know all the right words, truths, doctrine, but it can fail to translate into our everyday. We aren’t speaking the language of heaven if God’s love doesn’t flow through us and then out to the world. And when we try to speak God’s language without the actual language, it’s just noise.

I remember years ago when I used the Metro everyday to get to work, I’d often run into to tourists. Sometimes, those tourists spoke French. I would do my best not to eavesdrop, but I was so hungry to hear the language as it was intended to be instead of my feeble efforts, that I’d often listen in. On more than one occasion, the French held a degree of panic because the speakers couldn’t find their destination. How it thrilled me to use what I knew to point them in the right direction!

None of us on this earthly plane speak heaven’s language fluently. We’re trying. We’re learning. But we do a lot of stumbling trying to find the right word for what we want to say.

Even so, we can use what we have learned to help others. If people are looking for directions, but they don’t yet know how to communicate well, we can help them along and point them in the right directions. We need to use what we have, translate what we have.

If we do that, we echo, even if imperfectly, the heavenly choirs. And the Holy Spirit, makes up for what we don’t know and cannot say.

Because translating heaven’s words to those who are lost is always the will of our heavenly Father.

Not enough comments this week to award a prize. I humbly ask that if you like these blogs, you pass them on and share them with others.