Hebrews
12:10-12

    “… God
disciplines us for our good, that we may share in His holiness.  No discipline seems pleasant at the
time, but painful.  Later on,
however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have
been trained in it. Therefore,
strengthen your feeble arms and weak knees!  ‘Make level paths for your feet’, so that the lame may not
be disabled, but rather healed.”

Over and
over since the beginning of the year I’ve felt the call to pray for God to
strengthen and help us where we are weak and immature.

He shows me
the ‘great’ men and women of the faith; those we all look up to because of their
special gifts and anointings, and then He says ‘now pray for them where they
are weak, stunted and foolish.’

I know He
is absolutely not calling me to judge them, instead He is asking me to pray
that they would be enabled to grow where they are the least mature, and that
they would be open to learn from Him where their characters are most vulnerable.

God has
been showing me that He is very interested to grow our character, as
individuals and as church communities. 
He is very interested in producing the fruit of the Spirit in us, along
side those lovely gifts of the Spirit we so like to focus on. 

This summer
God gave me a picture as I was struggling with some of my own weaknesses of
character.  He showed me that I was
like a stroke victim. 

In my early
years of nursing I was particularly drawn to those who had suffered a
stroke.  I used to imagine laying in
their body and how it must have felt to have one half of my body ‘disabled’.  There were some things I noted as I cared
for these dear folks.  Sometimes they
completely disowned the non-functioning parts of their body.  This was made worse in those instances
where the vision on the affected side of their body was impaired through the
stroke; they literally could no longer ‘see’ their flaccid or contracted limbs,
they could only see the bits that still worked.  We had to teach them how to care for those parts that they
no longer recognized as their own. 
Remembering this gave me such a picture of how we can be; we can be so
focused on the functioning side of our personality and we can be in complete
denial about some of our ‘disabilities’. 

I considered
what the treatment was for the stroke victim, and remembered the crucial role
of the physiotherapists.  And with
that I felt that our Heavenly Father said, ‘let Me be your Divine Physio Fi’.  The answer for my floppy or
over-stretched muscles is best brought to me through the hands of my Heavenly Physio.  If I will yield my weaknesses to Him,
giving Him access to my disabilities, He will begin to work those muscles with
His discipline.  O boy, I prefer
the days when a gentle massage is called for!  But I know that ‘for our good’ there are days when the
treatment is tougher in order to awaken these sluggish areas, or to bring into
His healthy boundaries those out-of-control elements. These ‘treatments’ are
essential if I’m to walk with less of a limp.

I am so
thankful for friendships which include an honest and loving revealing of my ‘blindspots’.  With God’s help I want to always be
ready to hear when my weaknesses are adversely affecting my family and my
community.  I take it quite
literally that I belong to the Body of Christ, and that all the other members
belong to me too.  Their love is to
cover all my faults and failings, but it is not to deny them.  Love knows me as I really am; both my
strengths and my weaknesses.  It
cheers me on (come on Fi, strengthen your feeble arms and weak knees!), it
encourages and affirms me, and it also disciplines me and helps me to own the
less beautiful parts of me.  Sometimes the Body is my physiotherapist.

This year
as I watch some highly gifted men making some ghastly mistakes in areas of personal
weakness I understand better why God has been impressing on me with urgency to
pray that we grow in more than our giftings, but also in our characters.  As it says in the text from Hebrews,
God would like us to share in His holiness and to produce a harvest of
righteousness and peace, and this will take the training of discipline.