Physical Therapy

Friday 12/6/19 6:27 AM

Yesterday I had a physical therapy appointment for my recovery from hip surgery. They gave me three new exercises to add to my list. All the new exercises, which include planks, are designed to strengthen my core. A strong core is essential for good body mechanics and takes some of the stress off one’s hips and back. The exercises I am doing now are preparing me for a good future.

My devotional theme for the week is preparing the way. Today’s readings included the ministry of John the Baptist and his explanation to the Pharisees about how he wasn’t the Messiah but was preparing the way for the Messiah. In a way he was like my physical therapist. He called the people to repentance, providing the means by which they could respond positively to the call of Jesus.

How best can I prepare the way for Jesus so, when others are around me, they will be enabled to respond positively to his call? In his book, The Wounded Healer, Henri Nouwen suggests the best thing I can do is to become a man of prayer. “For a man of prayer is, in the final analysis, the man who is able to recognize in others the face of the Messiah and make visible what was hidden, make touchable what was unreachable. The man of prayer is a leader precisely because through his articulation of God’s work within himself he can lead others out of confusion to clarification; through his compassion he can guide them out of the closed circuits of their in-groups to the wide world of humanity; and through his critical contemplation he can convert their convulsive destructiveness into creative work for the new world to come.”

If I am to be a good “physical therapist” pointing the way to Christ I must not neglect my own time spent with God. I need a strong core so that my walk in the world will be effective in pointing others to Jesus and lead them to a good future.