Therefore, strengthen your feeble arms and weak knees. “Make level paths for your feet,” so that the lame may not be disabled, but rather healed.
Hebrews 12:12,13
All of a sudden it hit me. It was time. Time to stop delaying. Time to act. Time to do something about my problem. Time to get it fixed. It had been going on for a while, but I thought that I could just ignore it. If I just kept on doing what I’d been doing for all my life, everything would work out. But it wasn’t going to change. I needed to decide and act.
Yes, I did make a decision. And yes, it changed the direction of my life. But this decision didn’t happen in the place that you’d expect. I wasn’t looking at some beautiful sunrise. I wasn’t on top of a mountain overlooking beautiful valleys. I wasn’t even in a house of worship or some other spiritual place.
I was in a loud and smoky Las Vegas casino. As I was walking what seemed to be the many miles from my room to the convention center, I was so limping badly because of the pain. My right hip was really hurting from all those years of jumping off roofs and pounding while playing basketball. No over-the-counter pills could make a dent in the searing agony.
When I got home, I finally made an appointment with someone that specialized in this kind of thing. After some X-rays and a very short conversation, we set a date to fix my problem. He removed my problem and put something in its place. And we had so much fun doing it the first time, we got back together and did it again on the other side.
I’m sitting here pain free because of two artificial hips that have changed my life. Changed for the better. Gone are the painfilled, sleepless nights. Gone are all the large bottles of arthritis strength pills. Gone are the backaches and knee pain from all that limping.
You see, it wasn’t a mystery that I had a problem. I knew it every day I woke up. Every time I tried to take a step. Every time I sat down and got up. And yet, I didn’t do anything about it other than trying to hide it from myself through self-medication and denial to my friends.
So, what finally pushed me to do something? I’ll tell you what it wasn’t. It wasn’t some intellectual argument. Or was it some great spiritual insight? It wasn’t logic. It wasn’t even some wise social media post that convinced me to act. The great motivator in my life is pain. And if we’re all honest with ourselves, pain is what gets us going also.
This is exactly where the writer has taken the Hebrews. They are in the pain of persecution. But he doesn’t tell them to run and hide. Nor does he tell them to just ignore it. He points them towards action that will strengthen their feeble arms and weak knees.
And how do you strengthen something? How do you change a weakness to a strength? You don’t just study it. You don’t ask your social media friends what to do. You don’t just download an app. The simple truth is that you use it. You put in the time and effort to stretch and strengthen it.
Arms are for reaching and legs are for moving. So, the Hebrews need to start reaching for the Lord God who made them. Who called them by name. They also need to be moving toward the Lord God. But it doesn’t stop there.
More than just taking care of themselves, they need to do something to change the world around them. They need to work, making the uneven ground into a level path. Smoothing out the rough places and filling in holes. But why? Because someone might trip and fall, making them disabled.
These words and instructions are more than just what they’re to do with their shovels. When they make level paths for someone’s feet, they make it easier for people to move around. To move from one place to another. To do all this without falling down.
God wants us to do the same thing. To become stronger. To smooth out the rough parts of life so we can stop limping around in this life. We can’t be strong and sturdy if we’re limping around. He wants us to stop changing our minds from following God to doing our own thing. It’s time to become strong and stop limping.
And Elijah came near to all the people and said, “How long will you go limping between two different opinions? If the LORD is God, follow him; but if Baal, then follow him.” And the people did not answer him a word.
1 Kings 18:21 ESV
There’s nothing smooth or straight about limping. When we limp, we go from side to side. There’s nothing straight about changing our minds either. There comes a point in time that we’ve got to make up our minds. We’ve been putting it off for way to long. Now is the day of salvation[1]. Today is the day to serve the Lord[2]. It’s time to let God fix our lives once and for all.
Noodling Questions
What is it that will finally push you into action? How much pain must you feel?
Why is pain the great motivator?
How are you limping through each and every day?
[1] 2 Corinthians 6:1
[2] Joshua 24:15
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