Back Pain

My back is killing me.

     I'm almost 4 weeks in visiting the chiropractor and the pain has been increasing steadily since then. I find I have less energy, less motivation, and much more difficulty performing basic tasks. To make matters worse, I'm not even allowed the decency of complaining because the reason my back hurts in the first place is because it's in the process of being corrected.

     Oh sure, It all sounds so clean and precise after the initial assessment, when I'm told of a few minor points of concern, the potential harm of leaving them un-addressed, and the simple process for getting bones in the right place again. Of course now I'm beginning to think that a 6-12 month correcting process never feels long until you hit week 3 and your spine feels like it's made of porcupines.

     Ironically enough though, this experience is illuminating my study in Hebrews and how the author encourages the church to persevere under God's discipline and to accept his correction as a sign of love and adoption. He teaches how all discipline is part of a process and that this process will always involve pain. But it's because of love not hate that we experience what we do in Christ. How else does God show love to our dislocated and wayward hearts if not by placing us lovingly under his discipline? To submit to God's discipline is not to be out in the field taking hit after hit from God's shotgun every time a hint of imperfection arises, like some never ending game of cosmic Duck Hunt. No, like a chiropractor God knows what he's doing.

Plus He's patient enough to give us lasting relief and not the cheap cover up that the World so readily offers.  

"For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it." - Hebrews 12:11

It's still true today, we are in good hands.

Blessings,

Jake Rivers