Swimming, Car Back & New Perspective on Life

Today I went to the gym for the first time in 10 months. It was so encouraging to be able to walk through the locker room all by myself once again. What I mean is that today Rebecca took me swimming. It was so nice to stretch out and get my muscles moving again. My wife is quite the water princess and gave me a few personal training tips as I exercised. It was grand. Most of all, it provided me a new way to encourage my wife-- she has been longing for this day for so long! Now we can go to the gym together. Life's rests & wrestlings are so much better shared! I know this is a small picture of what the Lord meant when He said "the two shall become one flesh."

I also know this is a reflection of a Christian's relationship with God. Yeah, there certainly are lots of things we must wrestle with in this life (and I have gotten to know so many more of them through the trials of this disease over this last year and a half); but we wrestle not alone-- yeah, our Lord says to us, "Come unto Me ye weary, and I will give you rest." Because we are all affected by sin's curse, so many of our natural inclinations are suicidal! So we must die to ourselves in order to really live as children of God. It IS a legitimate struggle; but, praise God, we do not do it alone! Our Lord Jesus gives to us "light" burdens and an "easy" yoke (Matt. 11:28-30) because He is WITH us.

Our Lord has also given to us each other. As we strive together (wrestle) we know joy and refreshment from our family in God (resting). We are called as Christians to share in each other's burdens. And as we "bear one another's burdens . . . Let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up" (Galatians 6:2 & 9).
This week I have received another small piece of that reward: Rebecca and I got our Accord (car) back from my family. They had lent us their mini van because it was easier for me to get in and out of . . . Praise Him for getting better! I can now bend enough to use my smaller, cooler, and lower-to-the-ground car.

And now, the words of a hymn that I've been thinking about today. The Jim Elliot and four other missionaries were speared to death in the jungles of Ecuador while sharing Jesus with an unreached tribe of people (their story was recently in the theaters as the film End of the Spear, though Elizabeth Elliot's book Through Gates of Splendor was better), departed to meet with the tribe that morning with the words of the hymn "We trust in You, Our Shield and our Defender" on their lips:

1. We trust in You, our Shield and our Defender; We do not fight alone against the foe:
Strong in Your strength, safe in Your keeping tender, We trust in You, and in Your name we go.

2. We trust in You, O Captain of salvation! in Your dear name, all other names above: Jesus our Righteousness, our sure foundation, our Prince of glory and our King of love.

3. We go in faith, our own great weakness feeling, and needing more each day Your grace to know; yet from our hearts a song of triumph pealing, "We trust in You, and in Your name we go."

4. We trust in You, our Shield and our Defender: Yours is the battle-- Yours shall be the praise! When passing through the gates of dazzling splendor, victors, we rest in You through endless days.