Back to Foot

Last week, I was walking in a flat field alongside the River Ceiriog which is the English/Welsh border. The surface was slightly uneven, and I was wearing Adidas pumps rather walking boots. I lost balance slightly, and came close to spraining my ankle. A burst of pain, but then nothing. I limped a little, and then all was forgotten. The following day, however, and I could barely use my right foot. I literally walked on my tiptoe, so great was the discomfort in the foot's middle. Within a few days, I was hobbling, but no longer wincing (or should it be mincing?).

On Sunday morning, I reached over to put something in the bin as I was readying for church. Pow. It was like a jab to the ribs. A sharp pain on the left of my middle back, and down I went. Every time I moved, I contorted my face, crying out. I found that laying flat or bending forward eased the pain, but any other position or movement was like a knife inserted into my side. Even coughing caused a certain stabbing sensation, and I was unable to tie my shoe laces. I asked God to heal me; I had a service to lead and did not know how I would even ascend the pulpit steps. As I laid down on the floor and on the bed, I asked the Lord "Surely this is a day upon which You’ll take this right away, allowing me to function?"

So why did these events happen to me? Was it the Lord’s chastisement? I do not think so, for if He sent me sharp pains to my back and foot each time I offended His law, I should have fainted from agony decades ago. Might it have been the devil? A way of disrupting our worship, of dejecting my spirit, of distracting my thoughts? Again, I think not. If he could have his way with me, I would be burning in a lake of fire, not laying prostrate on a dining room floor. Furthermore, he cannot touch me without God’s express permission, so if even if it were him, it would still be my sovereign Lord employing him as some useful tool.

I suspect that Sunday morning's grimaces and gasps were the natural results of Adam's Fall. My body is simply wearing out, succumbing to some unpleasant consequence of a creation-wide curse. I am not excepted or excluded from this dreadful provision and effect of Adam’s great rebellion; a child of the King, I must bear my allocation of misery until I come into my inheritance. Too often, we are quick to blame God for punishing some sin or Satan for venting his spite. Although both persons have indeed operated in that way within the scriptural record, I must not flatter myself that this is any more than growing old and wearing out.

Remember now thy Creator…In the day when the keepers of the house shall tremble, and the strong men shall bow themselves, and the grinders cease because they are few, and those that look out of the windows be darkened. Ecc 12:1,3