Tend to your injuries early

Picture the scene...

You’re 3 miles into a 50 miles race and all is well. You’ve got a good training block behind you and you’ve tapered well the week before the race. As a result, you’ve found your flow quickly and you’re having one of those days where it all just feels easy. You’re skipping across the trail with freedom, taking in the glorious views, and you’re loving every moment. Even though you’re not concerned about race position at this stage, you’re flying along in the top ten and it all feels effortless. This is why you run.

A small, jagged pebble, no bigger than a grain of rice flicks up from the dusty trail and finds its way between your sock and the opening of your shoe. Over the next mile it works its way down past your ankle to the sole of your shoe, before nestling itself uncomfortably on the inside edge of the ball of your foot.

What do you do? Ignore it, or fix it?

Looking after feet is one of the most important ways to ensure you stay in the race

If it was a 5k race you would certainly ignore it. A little discomfort is tolerable over a short distance and the amount of time spend taking the shoe off to remove the stone would not be recovered.

But when the race is long, a stone in the shoe at mile three can be a race ending blister by mile thirty three. Taking a minute to remove the grit could save you from hours of suffering down the line. The temptation is to keep on going, you feel so good after all, but short term thinking can easily lead to a DNF. All experienced ultra-athletes tend to their injuries early.

I wonder what spiritual injuries you are carrying that might need attention?

In the previous blog we talked about the sin that disqualifies us from the race. It can be helpful to understand spiritual injuries as the wounds that we carry that are not the result of our own imperfections, but due to the sin of others and the brokenness of the world. Injuries are those things inflicted upon us, for which we don’t carry responsibility, that have the potential to leave us damaged and impaired – or even put us out of the race.

You may carry injuries from bad experiences of church; from difficult relationships; from past trauma; from disappointments, discouragements, criticism, or neglect. If you’re like me, you might be tempted to bury these things and try to press on regardless. But, as we’ve explored already, these injuries have a habit of coming back with a vengeance. What starts as a small wound can fester and become a monster which stops us in our tracks.

So, how do we tend to these injuries early?

1. Seek Healing

God is the great physician. He made our bodies and minds and has power to heal every sickness and disease. Juts as we would visit the physio to deal with a developing issue, we should be quick to turn to God to attend to our souls. As it says in the psalm:

"He heals the broken hearted and binds up their wounds." Psalm 147:3

Through prayer and the ministry of the Holy Spirit, God can lift the weight of past experiences and bring healing to our hearts and minds. I say this not to minimise the significance of our traumas, but to magnify the immeasurable power of God. Seek trusted Christians in your local church who can stand with you in prayer and support you as you go on a journey of healing.

2. Practice Forgiveness

Forgiveness is a vital part of the healing process.

Consider the father in the story of the Prodigal Son (see Contend with the Reality of Failure). The father had been sinned against in the most heinous of ways. His son had wished him dead, taken half of his worldly possessions, abandoned the family home and then recklessly squandered everything. The father, we might think, would be within his rights to hold a grudge and to make his son suffer the consequences. He could have let this injury fester. He could eaisily have become that bitter old man down the road who lives a life of loneliness, his only joy is kicking the neighbour’s cat and shouting at kids who kick a ball into his back yard.

Unforgiveness leads to bitterness; bitterness to sinfulness; and sinfulness is the road to spiritual failure.

Instead, the father tended to the injuries he suffered, making the difficult choice to forgive at the earliest possibly opportunity, and doing it with joy.

“But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him” Luke 15:20

By forgiving his son he not only freed his son from the burden of sin, but he freed himself from a future of bitterness and resentment. Paul in writing to the people of Colossae encourages us to do the same:

“Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience.  Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you.” Col 3:12-13

If we want to be long-distance disciples who endure to the very end, we must embrace the discipline of forgiveness. Through forgiveness we cut sin off at the root, refusing to let it propagate in our lives. Through forgiveness we begin the process of healing and set ourselves up for the long race ahead.

Where might you choose to offer forgiveness today?

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This post is part of a series of short blogs titled Faith Endurance, based on a sermon series preached at St Peter’s Morley in Spring 2024. If you enjoyed this, subscribe (above on the left) to get notifications each time a new blog is released.