Originally published Monday, 11 November 2013.
Last Christmas Eve, I bent over to pick up Joshua and the spasm of pain in my already troubled lower back quickly communicated a costly mistake...I had bent when I should have kneeled.
Health professionals, or anyone with back pain, confess that kneeling protects the back by transferring the stress of weight to the legs. However, most people bend at the hips the moment they drop something. Bending is the easier action. Easier isn't always better...bending causes more strain to the spine and may result in injury. Because kneeling is not our first reaction, more discipline and resolve are needed to use this better practice.
If we do not kneel we risk brokenness of body. Similarly, if we face the mishaps, temptations, and opportunities of today with a bent on our own merit and strength mentality, we succumb to brokenness of spirit.
Why should our backs endure that which was intended for the knees to sustain?
Therefore lift your drooping hands and strengthen your weak knees, and make straight paths for your feet, so that what is lame may not be put out of joint but rather healed. ~Hebrews 12:12-13
When the mess is made, the expectation unmet, the diagnosis rendered, relationships severed, or the moment of opportunity knocks, will we bend with all our might or bow our knees in humble prayer?
For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that...you may be filled with all the fullness of God. ~Ephesians 3:14-16, 19 (emphasis mine)
Kneel and be filled... bend and break. The choice is ours.
Today and everyday this week, why not kneel to retrieve and then kneel your heart in prayer? Obedience begets obedience and discipline begets discipline. May 2013 be marked by the discipline of prayer over self-powered attempts, and kneeling rather than back-breaking grasps.
For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost. ~Luke 19:10
And rising very early in the morning, while it was still dark, he (Jesus) departed and went out to a desolate place, and there he prayed. ~Mark 1:35
And going a little further, he fell on the ground and prayed...~ Mark 14:35 (emphasis mine)
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