A blessing and a limp

Sadly, my days of running over ploughed fields are over. That’s the advice of my physiotherapist.

This morning, as soon as I finish this blog, I’m off to see my long-suffering therapist once again. This time it’s a strained calf — I think my first injury to this particular muscle group.

Over recent years, however, this has become a familiar routine. I do the exercises he prescribes, then resume running, slowly at first and over short distances. Gradually, I build things up until I’m back at ParkRun, hopefully for several months. Then I injure myself again — and the cycle starts all over.

Basically, I’m determined to keep at it. Clearly, I have a profound running dependency problem. As I once explained to my patient GP, I need to run for my psychological health.

Church leader John Wimber once advised: “Only follow a leader with a limp!” On that basis, I’m becoming increasingly well qualified.

But I know what he means. There is something reassuring about a leader who knows their own weakness, who has experienced disappointment and discovered that they need help. Someone who understands that faith does not make us invulnerable.

The obvious biblical example is Jacob, who emerged from his night of wrestling with God with both a blessing and a limp. The encounter changed his name, but it also changed his walk. He carried the mark of that meeting into the next stage of his life.

We tend to prefer the blessing without the limp. Yet our weaknesses can teach us things which our achievements may leave us quite unaware of: patience, sympathy and a willingness to receive help. And when we face our own failings, we discover afresh our need for God’s free forgiveness.

For those of us who lead, there is a particular lesson here. If I always appear to have everything sorted, someone who is struggling may find it difficult to tell me so. But acknowledging my own struggles may give them the confidence to speak.

This week, the OM ship, MV Logos Hope, arrives at Liverpool’s cruise port. I once heard the founder of Operation Mobilisation, George Verwer, give an excellent address on what happens when we fall into what earlier generations called a besetting sin.

Fascinating phrase, besetting sin. It comes from Hebrews 12:1 in the Authorised Version: “the sin which doth so easily beset us”. Modern translations often speak of the sin that “so easily entangles”. The Greek word, euperistatos, is unusual and its precise meaning debated, but the picture in context is of something hindering a runner — even me doing ParkRun.

The expression has come to describe those persistent failings we struggle to leave behind. For some, the struggle involves compulsive behaviours or addiction. The usual suspects come to mind — alcohol, drugs, porn, even chocolate — although their consequences clearly differ. Other patterns can be harder to recognise in ourselves, yet deeply damaging: manipulation, bullying, the need to control, the determination always to have the last word.

So what do we do when we fail yet again? As I remember George putting it, what do we do when we find ourselves once more face down in the puddle?

For him, the answer was clear: we ask God’s forgiveness and get up! He used a phrase familiar to earlier generations: “We are washed in the blood!”

It’s a startling expression, especially for anyone unfamiliar with Christian language. But it points us to Jesus and his death on the cross. Our forgiveness rests on what he has done for us, rather than on our ability to produce a better performance this time.

So the apostle Paul rejoices: “In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace” (Ephesians 1:7).

That matters when we find ourselves confessing the same failure yet again. We may be thoroughly fed up with ourselves and assume that God must feel the same. Surely, by now, we should have made more progress.

Yet we can still come to him honestly. There is no need to minimise what we have done, offer an elaborate excuse or promise that we will never fail again. We ask for mercy, assured that Christ’s love reaches us even here.

When Jesus teaches us to forgive someone seventy times seven — in other words, to stop keeping count — he is showing us God’s heart: his amazing willingness to keep on forgiving, again and again. Such is his grace.

Receiving that forgiveness also enables us to face what needs to change. We may need to apologise, put right what we can, seek help or allow someone to hold us accountable. Some struggles will require professional support, just as my running injuries do.

We begin again, forgiven and dependent on grace. And when we stumble, we return to the one who already knows our weakness and still calls us to follow him.

Each time.

As George puts it in his address Handling Guilt — great title, by the way — “We want to operate as God’s forgiven people.”

That’s how we complete the course set before us.