In high school, my sophomore track season got derailed because of a back injury that started months before during wrestling season. Despite consulting a couple doctors, I couldn’t figure out why my back was bothering me. Chiropracters tried adjusting my back. Another doctor had me wear a heal lift in my shoe to compensate for a difference in the length of my legs. A physical therapist thought with a combination of electrical stem, ice and massages it would get better. The latter was my favorite, but even that didn’t fix the real problem. The real problem that caused my mid-lumbar strain was my hamstrings’ flexibility, or should I say, lack of flexibility. As a 15 year old, I didn’t understand the importance of stretching. The tightness in my legs caused my back to become extremely tight and then it couldn’t handle the trama delivered to it from wrestling or pole vaulting. The solution was surprisingly a basic core issue, but we all erroneously thought complicated treatments would do the trick.
It seems to me that many of us have a deep wounding or brokenness at our core that we try to medicate with shallow home remedies- a few more compliments from your peers, new stuff, more success (however we define that- the size of your bank account or “your” church), or a plethora of other options. All to no avail. Instead of turning to the core issue of connection with one’s creator.
Tim Keller-“Sin is the despairing refusal to find your deepest identity in your relationship and service to God. Sin is seeking to become oneself, to an identity, apart from him.”
Barbara Brown Taylor- “Contrary to the legal model, the essence of sin is not the violation of laws but a wrecked relationship with God, one another, and the whole created order. “All sins are attempts to fill voids,” wrote Simone Weil. Because we cannot stand the God-shaped hole inside of us, we try stuffing it full of all sorts of things, but only God may fill.”
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