Weakness Training

Most people today are familiar with strength training, wherein one works out with weights and does stretches in order to burn fat, tone up, and generally become a stronger person. Those who have read the best seller titled: “The Daniel Plan” by Rick Warren et al, might even be thinking of the phrase “Daniel Strong,” a good goal for us all. Truth be told, I’ve always thought of myself as that kind of strong, and in recent years have done things to try to stay that way… especially as I get older (ugh).

In fact, I have spent several seasons of my life committed to strength training, and had just taken it back up again over the last couple of months, due to the fact that a hip injury had forced me to stop running. I thought, well, since I can’t run I’ll start doing some weights at the gym while I wait for this to heal. However, looking back today I realized that my life of late has been much more about weakness training than strength training.

I think this season of weakness training may have started about a year ago, when I finally laid down my pride, publicly admitted my hearing loss (something I tried to hide for years), and purchased hearing aids. I am only forty-five. In case you don’t know, forty-five-year-olds don’t often get hearing aids, but this one did, and they do help me hear better, but that’s not all they do. They humble me. I used to be really cool. Now, not so much. And if you don’t think wearing hearing aids makes people think you’re old and a lot less cool, I dare you to try it.

So… I started running… and I was really getting into it and, eh hem, kind of proud to have run several half marathons, and was hoping to run a full marathon perhaps in the Fall, but then a few months ago I hurt my hip, mountain biking. In denial, I proceeded to run another half marathon through the pain. After that, my hip got so bad I had to stop running to let it heal, but nothing seemed to make it better. Always before I was that guy who healed ridiculously fast, but this time… no progress at all. What I thought would get better in a couple of weeks is really not much better after three months… and it is debilitating. (Yes moms, I have had x-rays, etc., and have tried one type of doctor and am seeing a different type of doctor starting next week).

So with the injury continuing to cramp my style, the next thing I knew it was time for our annual mission trip to Nicaragua which includes physical work such as building houses. Every other year I’ve been able to impress (myself) as a “hard worker,” putting my physical stamina and strength on display (heh heh). I would be the one to go get the wheel borough full of cement every time (as if anyone noticed), but this time I couldn’t do anything impressive at all, and in fact, felt so crummy that for the first two days, I just wanted to go home. What was my problem? Well things weren’t the same as usual, spiritually (people were less responsive and opportunities were less abundant this year, another blog perhaps) and meanwhile I couldn’t do very much physically either so I just felt completely useless.

To make matters worse, my physical limitation was a hip problem… just like my dear Dad… who is wonderful, but old (just kidding, Dad). But really, everyone misunderstanding the situation (an injury) and talking to me about hip surgery (Dad’s had two), basically made me face that I’m not thirty anymore and to accept the fact that it all gets worse (physically) from here. Some of you know that’s a pretty painful reality check. So here I am trying to convince myself that this is not going to be a problem for me until the day I die, and meanwhile unable to do the work I normally do or to portray the image I normally portray (yes, I know how this sounds), I did what I could, but even what little I did was apparently too much, because there were two nights when I lay in agony, moaning and groaning in pain and not sleeping at all, which led to some really bad days when I couldn’t even think straight. I then made the “mistake” of telling people on our team how much pain I was experiencing, which led to me feeling even more like a total wimp, even as sweet, loving people wanted to fuss over me (and I did appreciate it, but it’s also humbling). Everyone was very caring. Superman (in my own mind) was down. The leader could not lead. He simply was not capable. He was emotionally spent and physically he might as well have been eighty-five. WEAKNESS. I hate it. Ouch.

But that wasn’t the end of the week’s lessons for me. Stomach problems hit next and I spent the week feeling miserable in the gut, but then a sore throat signaled what would become a terrible head cold to go along with my lower end problems. All of this turned into a nightmare on the very long journey home through three airports and six takeoffs and landings. I thought my head would explode… or maybe something else. Everyone felt sorry for me… just what I wanted (not). This terrible trip (from 3 a.m. to 10 p.m. on Saturday) lead to the first time in twenty-five years that I have missed a Sunday service for illness. Yes, I was absolutely keeping track and was quite proud of my flawless twenty-five-year record, now history. I stayed home sick Sunday (in defeat) and three days later I’m just starting to feel well enough to type this blog.

So, I wonder if there is a lesson in all of this for me? DUH!!! As the Apostle Paul put it in 2^nd Corinthians 12, God is saying: “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness.” And Paul went on to say, “Most gladly, therefore, I will rather boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me. Therefore I am well content with weaknesses, with insults, with distresses, with persecutions, with difficulties, for Christ’s sake; for when I am weak, then I am strong.”

I must decrease. He must increase. Amen.

We could also insert here any of the many verses about humility and how God is opposed to the proud but lifts up the humble, right? So I say to myself, “Hello, are you listening? What is God trying to teach you, dummy?” And, of course it is obvious isn’t it? I’ve had a dose of weakness training, and the Lord knows I needed it. Mr. Healthy and Mr. Strong is now Mr. Sick and Mr. Weak. And so I say also with Paul, “Wretched man that I am! Who will set me free from the body of this death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!” (Romans 7:24-25a).

Who knew I needed weakness training? God did. And for all of you who are reading this and thinking, “Yeah, we knew you needed it too…” well look out brother, because you may be next. And in case I haven’t been clear, you are not going to like it, because with weakness training, it really is “No pain, no gain.”

So, it has been a rough few months, physically speaking, but now I am understanding more what God is doing, and I have hope for the answer to another of Paul’s prayers in my life, “that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with power through His Spirit in the inner man” (Eph. 3:16). Let it be true, Lord. Let it be true.

I surrender.