Recovery - Day 53!

Wow! I can hardly believe how long it's been since my knee surgery! So I am way overdue for an update. Here's the short version: I've been getting physical therapy for the past 4 weeks. It has been going fairly well. I've learned what exercises I will need to continue to do to keep my condromalacia condition from becoming too irritated and enflamed. I've been trying to maintain some of my fitness through cross training. I've been swimming and doing a little biking. I haven't tried to run as of yet. I'm wanting to get a little more comfortable with the biking. I've recently swam laps (2000 yards to be exact) with a friend who pushed me harder than if I would have swam alone. Indeed I told her, "two are better than one! I wouldn't have pushed myself this hard had you not swam with me!" Anyway, I'm thinking about giving running a try some time in October. I have one more PT session and then I go back to the doctor. This past week my knee has felt the best it has felt in such a long time. I am thankful.

God has been doing a work in me. I am learning more of the surrendered life which includes yielding to a God who does not quit nor become weary with the work He has begun in me. His aim is high, much higher than mine. I would think I'm fine and "sanctified" enough. He thinks otherwise and so continues to shape my heart to reflect my Saviour Redeemer who is so full of holiness and love and truth. Oh to have my heart as His - continually and without compromise or feelings of callousness or indifference - a cloaking of sorts to prevent hurt and heartache. My Saviour is free from these things and this is why His aim is so high for me.

There are other thoughts that have been with me these past few months. I've been thinking a lot about prayer. Recently someone asked me if I thought there may be sparks of "prayer rivival" occuring in our land because they happened to stumble across a certain ministry organization who was ushering a call to the nation to pray. While it is very encouraging to hear this, my small opinion is that people/organizations/groups/ministries/churches etc…have been urging folks to pray for years now! While it is a good thing to urge others to pray, and I have been doing some of the urging myself in my own little church community, I believe we simply need to do it!!!!! The church needs to be praying together way more than we are. We need to be desperate for prayer and wear God out with our desperate cries for Him to pour out His Spirit upon His church. I've been thinking that we will not know true conviction unless His Spirit illuminates the truth to us. We have become good at self-deception about many things. And so if we are not convicted, we will not repent. If we do not repent, God will not hear and bring healing to us and our land. I’ve been thinking a lot about these things and I’ve concluded that God's church, universal, and even my own small local assembly are not the kneeling church we must become. Our eyes seem to be looking too much to the sins of others, not our own. Our eyes seem to be looking to the evil in our land, not the evil in our own hearts or in our own homes.

Anyway, I believe there are a lot of changes going on in our churches. Some of the change is not good change but due to the work of men and/or of evil spirits because they have found breaches in our walls. Other changes are God changes and good changes which I believe He wants to bring more of. But one thing is certain; we must be involved in the work of prayer. I fear otherwise, slowly we will become just what Satan desires – “religious” people, denying the power of the true and living God and we will walk in compromise and a deceptive form of comfort in both our church and our own individual “Christian” life. These are some of my recent reflections in the past several months.

But there is more: the return of Christ is on my mind. The great “falling away” from the faith that precedes His coming is on my mind. The condition of my own prideful and self-reliant heart is on my mind. The need I have for endurance to finish well is on my mind. And because all these things are on my mind I have no other recourse but to cry out to God in desperate prayer!

As I have thought about "prayer and revival," the infamous 2 Chronicles 7:14 verse has naturally come to mind. From what my Bible reads it seems that there is a condition involved. Are more of God's people being called to a deeper intercession which could lead to revival in our land? My answer would have to be, “Well, it all depends if God’s people will do what God is requiring in this passage.” Will I do what is required? Will the church do what is required? Even my own church? These are the questions on my mind.

As I have be in a "rehab" state in the physical sense with my knee and in the spiritual sense with bringing me into deeper surrender, I am also thinking that God's church has its own "rehab" to undergo. An exercise regime including desperate prayer seems to me to be of utmost importance. There are no more programs left to try. And we have long taken our eyes off of Christ's most certain return and those who desperately need to know Him before the trumpet sounds. Will I run this coming October? Well, I am wanting to be at the place where if I am never to run another day in my life it will be well with my soul. Because after all, I am running a marathon of a different kind, a marathon of the soul and its transformation by Jesus. And, by the grace of God, I want to run this race in a way as to win! (1Cor. 9:24)