Spiritual Fitness & Living With Chronic Pain

If your prayers are simply requests for personal needs and/or desires, then I encourage you to examine your life a bit more closely. Especially when feeling ongoing pain or depression, I know how easy it is to fall prey to the desperate need of wanting to get rid of gnawing pain no matter what. Nothing else seems very relevant at this point. Pain then becomes the cornerstone of your thoughts and therefore, your prayer requests.

But what are you going to do if your pain becomes part of your human growth? What if God doesn’t alleviate your suffering after days upon days, months upon months and years upon years requesting remedy through prayer?

Not to diminish the power of God relevant to healing or to that of prayer, but sometimes, the experience of suffering is used for your good, not necessarily for your demise – even if you’re unaware of some of its benevolent qualities.

Edmund Soper writes, “Without the experience of suffering a man’s nature remains shallow. Pain that has been lived through gives to character a depth that seldom comes from the experience of happiness.”

In a sense, your prayer life is an intermediary discussion between God and you. It defines your religious expression with God. The demand of prayer is not for certain wounds to be healed or for financial provisions to be met or for brokenness to be instantly restored. Prayer is much more than this.

Mere reformation does not depend upon your evaluation of God’s performance during prayer. Prayer, in its highest form, purifies your unspoken desires and gives you much more than you can fathom. It leads you into the reality of a new will and a new life to be lived, whether pain or depression are a part of the construct.

To glean another insight from Edmund Soper, he writes, “No desire is ever quite the same after it has been offered up before God in prayer; a desire which has found expression in prayer is inevitably purified and elevated. Prayer, therefore, is the training-ground for character.”

Keep me on your favorites.  For more about living with chronic pain and spiritual healing visit me at www.gordonselley.com.

Part of grabbing this new transformed life, even though you might still experience chronic pain, involves the “push-pull” effect as it correlates to belief and discipline.

What I mean is simply this…No matter your adversities, having personal fortitude – composed of belief and self-discipline – will enable you to “push” beyond natural points of resistance in order to gain better ways of living. Yet, the “push” part of human effort comprises only half of the load. It only drives you so far.

Sure, your belief and hard work can spring you free from some of your unhealthy habits. But the “pull” part of the equation is equally, if not more important as the “push” element, when trying to live an abundant life, despite the possibility of living with chronic pain.

The “pull” part means this…It involves the reality that you’re not alone when trying to overcome gigantic obstacles. Your belief system and your fine-tuned dedication to getting the best results aren’t the only factors involved. The “pull” fraction includes the sovereignty of God.

Sometimes your beliefs are limited by your abilities to produce results. God believes in you far more than you probably believe in yourself. His way to “pull” our “push” efforts are subtle and noninvasive. It’s done in love. It’s grounded in greater belief and far greater power and with even far greater wisdom.

When you start to walk out this new transformed life, realizing the “push-pull” effect includes another helper for redeeming your being, you’ll then experience the miraculous changes of abundant living.

Keep me on your favorites.  For more about living with chronic pain and spiritual healing visit me at www.gordonselley.com.

For the industrious, the importance of making plans, formulating strategies and mapping out goals allows one to chart a course of responsible living, which is inarguably filled with a heightened sense of driven purpose.

Without debate, this course of action spawns higher values and a sense of greater accomplishment.  Yet unavoidably, sometimes well-preparedness and purpose-driven fervor cannot prevent catastrophic trials from happening.  Look all around, even at those who have soared to the highest positions of leadership in business, education, military, athletics, medicine, religion and politics.  No one has proven invincible during this season of shaking.

The silver-lined clouds pour rain upon the righteous and unrighteous alike.  Our diverse culture depends upon each other, markedly defined by the weakest point in the chain.  As much as the prudent strive to insulate themselves from upcoming calamity, their efforts remain temporary, if not futile.  Perplexity assuredly has followed the path of complex problems that were invented by human greed.

Although each person must endure his or her trials, it’s time to acknowledge how each personal victory corresponds to the welfare of the surrounding collective.  Simply put, the richness of our society depends upon everyone’s benefit, whether stationed high or low within the American social structure.

Carving out one’s personal niche to glean selfishly will not help to solve the torrid flood of problems awaiting us, especially if the surrounding community continues to disintegrate.  Attaining higher personal standards is certainly noble.  But if these personal endeavors contribute to neglected relationships and a crisis of unity, then additional pitfalls are sure to come.

Although I certainly do not condone socialization within the Democratic system, I am a strong proponent of faith and it’s outcome, which is transformation.  Basically, the message about wholeness from salvation originates from God.  While this impacts people eternally on an individual basis, the good news also spreads to the community at hand, then eventually to every society beyond the immediate borders.  Faith, hope and love bind all people to God, Who then promises to restore those nations who haven’t forgotten Him.

Perhaps the United States might benefit if it were to include God as a part of the solution during these seemingly insurmountable times…

Keep me on your favorites.  For more about living with chronic pain and spiritual healing visit me at www.gordonselley.com.

Q:  If I start believing for better health, when will it happen?

A:  Most likely, never…

Let me qualify my answer for you.  Under no circumstances, am I diminishing the unfathomable healing power of God when I bluntly make my response to your question.

When referring to “belief,” it is not a one-shot thing, in which healing springs from human wish and/or hopeful anticipation.  “Belief” is much more than this.

The importance of persistence in belief and how it impacts healing cannot be overstated.  Keep God’s wisdom close to your heart.  In other words, keep it close to every part of your being, including mind, emotions and will.  And as you persist in your beliefs, you’ll discover that you’re life turns into a practical walk of faith.

From this reference point, miraculous healing sometimes occurs.  However, this is found in the minority who struggle with pain. 

Clearly…better health comes as we grow in spiritual vitality first.  The time frame is unknown for better health because all healing comes through God and He is sovereign about timing and to what extent health is restored for each individual.

I encourage you to remain persistent in your walk of faith and in pursuit of wisdom.  “For they are life to those who find them and health to all their body” (Proverbs 4:22, NASB).

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If you’re living with chronic pain and feeling substandard and don’t feel like you deserve anything better than the ground where the dead branches lay, consider this…You’re more than a fallen branch – weakened, unnourished, decaying and waiting to die.

I boldly make this claim in reference to those who profess having faith in Jesus Christ, whether being Gentile or Jewish or of significant standing.  Neither race nor station plays any role when being rejuvenated and restored into life.  Only belief does.

So what does this really mean?  It means this…With all the painful messiness of your life; you’re still a branch grafted into the olive tree of life.  And more importantly, it is the root that supports you.  You’re not responsible to do something you can’t, like support the root.  And more precisely, I might add that the roots actually derive healthy nourishment from God Himself, just as you can.

The broken branches on the ground are those of unbelief.  And as this relates to you, I encourage you to press through your trials maintaining a consistency of faith.  Stay connected with the root.  He’ll personally nourish you back to health.

Keep me on your favorites.  Click daily for updates about living with chronic pain and spiritual healing at www.gordonselley.com.

Q: I’ve lost everything, my health, my job, my husband and my dignity. So…how can you find hope when everything feels destroyed?

A: Thank you for your question. Consider two poignant thoughts…

First, no matter how much devastation has happened in your life, the fact remains that you are not totally destroyed, or else you would not be inquiring about finding hope. Although your life might seem pitifully small, like a single flower left in bloom from an entire bouquet, hope still remains. You can see this from the evidence of your willingness to live onward in which to build upon…

And second, just because this season seems to represent the dead of winter, it certainly will not continue this way indefinitely. Life cycles are ebb and flow between life and death. Most likely, your ghastly circumstances are not your last expressions of life.

Given these two factors alone, there exists a real opportunity to be freed from the chains of physical and emotional destruction, as well as having your heart renewed by the compassionate love of God.

You might have asked yourself, “Do not these miserable failings mark me as one rejected by God?” This is the typical reaction of those who suffer from overwhelming pain and hardship. Nevertheless, the cruelties of this world do not adequately supply the healthy nourishment required for your soul.

Back to your original question. The key to finding hope is to find out who God is. And afterwards, when you can trust in Him completely with everything…just as you are honestly, with the messiness of everything…then you’ll discover that He’s the real hope for living to begin with…

I encourage you to reconstruct your life on this very foundation. Your wintery experience will soon give way to the spring blossoms of new life.

Keep me on your favorites. For more about living with chronic pain and spiritual healing, visit me at www.gordonselley.com

To your health, Gordon Selley

Let me save you some time about how to have faith when making changes. Here’s what typically happens. When people discover faith for the first time, they’re super enthused about really changing for the better, no matter the sacrifice involved. And then as time passes, commonly, the results of making these purposed changes happens very slowly and minimally, and then when discouragement sets it, well…we know the final outcome. Most people abruptly give up on the process altogether.

Nonetheless, when things get even worse, people somehow navigate towards what they believe as truth and begin the process about making positive change all over again. This pattern of starting over by having faith in change, then giving up when the results are not quickly obtained repeats itself until hopelessness eventually prevails.

This vicious cycle is clearly seen when referring to those who live in chronic pain or for those who struggle with being overweight.

Many confuse this failure to succeed in making changes as a direct result of not having enough faith, which brings me to the point regarding this blog.

Simply, we’re not asked to have faith in the ability to change for the better. And secondly, we can’t define or specify how faith works itself out completely. Or if we could, this is certainly not faith.

Faith is peculiar, meaning it comes from one source. And when we place our faith in God, we’re inwardly believing what God says to us is absolutely true. His ways are far greater than ours; causing us to relinquish our brokenness to Him so that He can ultimately change us from the inside out.

In summary, when we put our faith in God, He’ll help us to make the right changes for the better, as opposed to us trying to determine the exact changes to make, and then calling this faith. We really don’t have faith in others or in money or in opportunities or in anything else. Again, this is not faith when we count on something other than our one true source.

Here’s what faith is. Faith comes from receiving the testimony of God through Jesus Christ. Let this truth sink deeply into your being to understand real faith and its miracle-producing change available for you…

Keep me on your favorites.  Please click onto www.gordonselley.com for more information about living with chronic pain, as well as spiritual healing.

Recently I had lunch with a friend who seemed somewhat discouraged about his circumstances. In the middle of making some significant changes with his life, he’s fret with doubt about whether or not God is really participating during this process of restoration. Haven’t you felt similarly?

When we really need God, doesn’t it seem like He abandons us at the crucial times, especially when we really desire to count on Him to help with things beyond our control? I think my friend feels very much this way. Nothing seems to matter. From our conversation, prayer seems powerless and reading the Bible feels obligatory more than anything else. As he takes one step forward, it’s as if he also takes two steps backward. He already knows most of the answers about making the most from every circumstance, ranging from opportunity to failure. In fact, I consider this individual very astute about relational and practical issues.

But when it feels like God is not lending a helping hand, dissolution quickly interrupts our attempts to optimistically move forward.

As I listened to my friend’s version of things, I couldn’t help but to think about the difference between principle and vision, as these apply to spiritual outlook. Principles are basically the results of one persevering through vision. When we idealistically apply principles into our life and follow them strictly, we begin to do things exclusively on our own merits or based upon the expectations of others. This strategy is actually deceptive, making us think we’re on the right path, all the while, our burdens get heavier and darkness overtakes any light regarding spiritual realism.

In the long run, strictly following the path of principles does not allow us to follow vision, and in particular, the vision of God. When running this course, we lose vision, as well as an inspired attitude about life.

It’s ironic…My friend actually gave me a plaque with an inscription stating, “Lead With Vision…Where there is no vision, the people perish” (Proverbs 29:18). I know he’s going to read this blog, as well as many others who might identify with what my friend is going through.

Here’s my advice in a capsule. Don’t try to create moral inspiration based upon principle. Nothing really transpires when doing this. Instead, as Oswald Chambers writes, “But wherever there is vision, there is also a life of honesty and integrity, because the vision gives me the moral incentive.” Of course, it takes faith to continue through trials before realizing the vision of righteousness. By faith, follow the vision of God to take you through transformation…

Keep me on your favorites.  Please click onto www.gordonselley.com for more information about living with chronic pain, as well as spiritual healing.

Who are we? I do not ask this question esoterically. Like many throughout human history, perhaps you’ve wondered about your own identity and how it pertains to your purpose for living.

As profound as this “three-worded” question might appear, it ignites a plethora of additional questions, as well as generating numerous philosophies about life. To remain on point, I’m going to try to explain our human make-up in terms of trichotomy, meaning body, soul and spirit. Personally, I believe we are made up of three parts, which differs from the dichotomist who believes in the two-part theory, purporting the design of man as material and immaterial. While I certainly understand this point of view, I also appreciate the fact that man is created in the Image of God, Who is “triune” in His Holy Nature. Therefore, I’m going to give it a stab, explaining the “three-part” nature of man when answering the question, “Who are we?”

In doing so, I’m also going to explain the importance of spiritual conversion. Remember, in the creation of man, God breathed spirit into the body. “Then the Lord God formed man of dust from the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being” (Genesis 2:7, NASB). This is how it all started for the human race.

Imagine the concept of trichotomy, in which body, soul and spirit are represented with the use of different colored transparencies from an overhead projector. If the body was represented by a blue-colored transparency, and the spirit was represented by a yellow-colored film of transparency, then what would happen when combining the spirit (yellow) with the body (blue)? Well…the combined transparency colors would become green, thus representing the birth of the soul (mind, emotions and will). Essentially, this is who we are, representing everything about our human nature.

Now think about this in terms of spiritual conversion. Once an individual has accepted Jesus Christ as his Savior, then his spirit becomes reborn or born again. A new creation is formed within the body of man. Basically, the Holy Spirit becomes the source of spiritual life for the redeemed person who now possesses Jesus Christ’s imputed righteousness. Simply put, this person has become a child of God, being promised the abundance of heavenly riches in love.

When thinking about spiritual conversion as it relates to the colored transparencies, let’s see how things look once we have undergone death…

At death, this born-again spirit resurrects from the body, like Christ did, and now becomes joined with a new body, one that is perfectly glorified. Imagine combining two brand new colored transparencies together, in which the reborn spirit united with the glorified body. What color would you see when the two were overlapped? An indescribable, heavenly color, portraying an eternal outcome of a perfect soul as a result of a born-again spirit being fully integrated with a glorified body. This perfect soul would have perfect knowledge, shining in the resplendent glory of God’s love.

“Beloved, now we are children of God, and it has not appeared as yet what we will be. We know that when He appears, we will be like Him, because we will see Him just as He is” (1 John 3:2, NASB).

Please consider these thoughts as your mind becomes renewed by the Spirit over 2009. You are created in the Image of God and have a real opportunity to overcome your circumstances of chronic pain or suffering or excessive weight. Feel free to contact me if you need some assistance about discovering the living reality of Jesus Christ.

Keep me on your favorites.  Please click onto www.gordonselley.com for more information about living with chronic pain, as well as spiritual healing.

Happy New Year!

I’ve got an idea. Instead of hoping for things to get better, why not take the plunge and do something helpful about your lifestyle circumstances? If you wait for others to make your decisions for you, then aren’t you really living your life by reacting to their influence?

This way of living is void of wisdom – which brings me to my point about this blog. 2009 is a pivotal year for securing an improved life. In order to build a solid foundation and to reconstruct the way we do things, acquiring wisdom becomes mandatory for successful change.

So how do we acquire wisdom? I think we need to find out what wisdom is before we can really acquire it. Needless to say, I know first of all what wisdom isn’t. It’s not birthed from human intellect nor from behavioral scholarship nor from the higher spheres of philosophy; and related to the times in which we live, wisdom, in its fullness and completeness, contradicts our human perspective about relative truth.

In other words, wisdom cannot be limited by our interpretive beliefs about what we think might be best for our own lives. This is what relative truth does, supporting entitlement and encouraging self-actualization. While this postmodern approach seems to empower self-enhancement, oftentimes, relative truth falls short to secure moral efficiency among a collective society. Wisdom is much better. It not only creates personal magnificence, but also sustains all things for all people for the higher purposes of unity, regardless of obstacles or cultural differences.

So what is wisdom and how do we acquire it? Please open the ears to your heart for my answer.

Simply put, Jesus Christ is Wisdom, and not your ordinary understanding of wisdom. I’m referring to the Wisdom of God…something that is personal because of Jesus, and something that can dwell in you because of God’s grace, and something that will help you grow in the truest sense of richness.

Edmund Clowney, a professor of practical theology, writes, “We grow in wisdom as we prove out in our lives the things that are pleasing to God.” Expounding upon Clowney’s thought, this is what’s cool about wisdom. It’s not something that is stagnant nor something that is compiled encyclopedically as unattainable. We don’t get all the answers about life from one helping. Candidly speaking, wisdom is quite different because of how it delivers redemptive truth. It does so wrapped in love, and dispenses very patiently, step by step, one day at a time. In effect, wisdom does not force itself upon us nor does it pressure us to change into something we don’t want. Instead, it grows in the right situations, silently but surely, showing us victory instead of judgmental defeat.

Dig deep because wisdom is within our grasp, like a seed that has been planted in our hearts, ready to grow as Christ is formed within us. And when we dare to trust God, and then begin to walk in faith, His wisdom grows even more so. It’s this incomprehensible knowledge of God – which is made real and understandable through Jesus – that creates a strong and permanent foundation for living.

Keep me on your favorites.  Please click onto www.gordonselley.com for more information about living with chronic pain, as well as spiritual healing.

Take a moment and challenge yourself about how you should live now. If you sincerely want to see the beauty of life literally sprout from adversity in 2009, then simply acquire wisdom.