Spiritual Fitness & Living With Chronic Pain

When you’re at the place where pain, whether physical or emotional, stops you dead in your tracks, I encourage you to resist giving up and to continue onward no matter the circumstances.

From my experience with living with chronic pain, I’ve discovered some very tough lessons through intense times of bodily suffering, fatigue and deep depression.

One loss on top of another can definitely complicate your ability to see the light of day; all the while, dimming any hope of living a productive lifestyle ever again.

I know what I’m about to say sounds crazy, but please listen because it’s very important. This crossroads where you’re positioned is the place to begin rebuilding your life.

And when your condition is chronic, meaning this unhealthy cycle repeats itself over and over again, year after year, this is when you have an opportunity to do something constructive, instead of being disheartened to the point of giving up.

I encourage you to voluntarily resign to the reality of nothingness about your circumstances. Please do not misunderstand what I’m trying to say. I’m absolutely not suggesting that you become fixated on lowly thoughts or that you adopt abnormal living habits.

On the contrary, I’m referring to something much deeper spiritually and something very real for your recovery.

While your flesh (body, mind, emotions and will) might want the trials of painful adversity to be completely eliminated immediately, God might actually be using this form of suffering as a way of developing your true spiritual wholeness.

What I mean is this. Your pain might be the cross you must bear so you’ll learn how to obediently resign to nothingness. In other words, this might be the best way for you to actually “die to self” or “to become more aware of eternal realties.”

When resigning to nothingness, this is exactly when your faith will direct you into the rest of God. And from this construct this is where the life of Christ will begin to fully manifest through you.

By resigning to nothingness, you’re becoming less. By giving yourself to God, He’s becoming more in you. You’ll find that your trust will practically grow in knowing God through suffering.

For the most part, the pain will no longer remain the centerpiece of despair in your life. Rather, it will simply signal you to give yourself, including all of your anxieties, quickly unto God.

Think of your dark times as opportunities of spiritual growth. I know some of these thoughts are deeply profound. Yet, the spiritual things do become real when we set our minds to believe in them.

In essence, the more you decrease, the more He will increase in you, giving you the true meaning of freedom and healing.

Your dark clouds will eventually fade away because your newfound confidence of faith will enlighten your entire being about the realness of the eternal things to come.

Just some helpful thoughts about living with chronic pain and spiritual fitness…

The importance of spiritual fitness and how it relates to your life deals directly with your relationship with God. It has nothing to do with your efforts to feel justified by good works.

Essentially, your whole purpose of life is to be near God, and likewise, to have God near you. This is when restoration of the body and redemption of the human soul has any chance of taking place.

The disciplinary side of spiritual fitness can actually hurt. Because many philosophical thoughts and worldviews influence our religious expressions, it’s common to find that many people are actually pretending to be near  God, when in reality, they are not.

This is the essence of spiritual fitness. It’s a process that brings you closer to God, meanwhile, setting you apart from being confirmed by worldly ways of living. It’s moving from past to present, so you can experience the fulfilling promises about a new future.

For more information about living with chronic pain or spiritual fitness, please keep me on your blog favorites.

Re-constructing from old to new!

Spiritual Fitness is not the exercise of any spiritually-related practice. Furthermore, it’s not an attempt to make you the primary focus of better health and self-awareness. Sure you will glean the fruits of having a healthier lifestyle through a dedicated diet of spiritual fitness.

But the goal is not about what you can do to try to flex your spiritual muscles toward improved living. On the contrary, it’s the exact opposite. It’s about how much you’re willing to be stretched by faith into someone “new” through your beliefs in God.

Do you feel the buzz in the air? People are willing to put aside the old, ugly, dirty and heavy junk from the lifestyles of 2009 for something radically new.

Yet, to really begin to live from a new mindset, it takes full understanding what death means to the core of your being. And for many people, it seems as if this past year typified some of the characteristics of death through loss, conflict, pain and brokenness.

You’re not really afraid of pain and fragmentation because you’ve already been living like this for quite some time. And as a result, you no longer fear the worst because you’ve been accustomed to the regular “ups & downs” of living with chronic pain – both physically and emotionally.

Spiritual fitness awaits your participation. This simply means that you are meant to be “set apart” from the encumbrances of this worldly life.

To walk the road of spiritual fitness isn’t easy. It takes incredible faith, a willingness to be guided by the Spirit of God, and courageous surrender and immense discipline to keep on enduring no matter what. The rewards are unbelievably fulfilling, both on your inner core, as well as seen on your outer being.

Stay with me this year as I’ll continue to blog about living with chronic pain and how to reach your potential of a fulfilled life. It’s literally closer to reality than you might actually realize.