Literally. I slipped down the polished wooden stairs in my house on my way out to work yesterday morning. Fab had left at 5:30 with the company car to make a site inspection somewhere up north of Brisbane so no one saw me slip and slide my way down towards the front door. Let me tell you, it hurt. I felt my back pull and I think I heard something crack but I could have imagined that. I crawled closer to the door and propped myself up against the wall, waiting for the pain to subside. I contemplated staying home but figured everything would be fine after the initial shock wore off. The sting on my thighs eventually faded but I knew my back was not in for a good time. I happen to flick my head back a bit in the car only to realise that sent a sharp pulling pain across my back. My mobility has been restricted since the fall.
I sit here now with two very sore arms. The top of my right arm, where it joins with my shoulder feels a little whack, for lack of a better word. It's not cracked or disjointed or dislocated, just clicky and weird and sore. The main source of pain lies in the middle of my back between my shoulder blades and from there the discomfort and ache and immobility radiates across my shoulders, up my neck (sometimes pulling in my head causing headaches and even nausea), and down my arms to my finger tips at times. I can even feel it in my chest, particularly when I cough or laugh or sniffle too hard or take a really deep breath.
I haven't seen a doctor or anyone about it. I don't really feel like paying someone who might give me useless advice, as I have often received in the past from medical people who don't care about me. I'm going to the greatest fixer of all. God. He can fix me back to what I'm supposed to be because He made me in the first place and knows what needs to be done and where everything should go and what needs to be loosened or tightened or shifted or removed even.
Why shouldn't I believe that God can work a miracle in me if He has done it in so many other peoples' lives. Why should I be cynical towards His ability and willingness to heal and restore? I want to have a testimony to share to others of His goodness and His power. I want to live with faith and not just think that I have to put up with this pain until time takes its course because though I may learn to live with some level of discomfort as I have before, it just means I am giving in to a lesser standard than what my God is capable of.
When I was praying one Sunday a couple of months ago, I received a little vision, an image, that though fleeting, was clear to me. It was a picture of me being handed a sceptre (like that of a King). I felt God impress upon my heart the statement, "I'm giving you my authority. You don't have to beg me for things, you can speak to the storm. You can speak life over terrible situations with authority and faith. Take hold of it. Walk and live in the authority I am giving you".
Just the Sunday that past, Pastor Lance said in his sermon (regarding the commission in Matthew 28:18-20), "Jesus gave us his authority. And to make sure we got the point, he baptised us into the name (authority) of the Father, and then as if this weren't enough, into the name (authority) of the Son, and to really drive in the message, into the name (authority) of the Holy Spirit. So we're effectively completely drenched in God's authority! What are we doing with it?"
Do I know what it means for me to appropriate this authority? Do I know how to exercise it? Sometimes I think the louder I yell a command, like, "traffic jam, be gone in the name of Jesus this very instant!!!!" that things will happen as I declare them. But it doesn't work like that. I am starting to think it's linked with my motives as well - what I am asking for, the reason for asking, and maybe at times whether I could have done something to change the situation (like woken up earlier to avoid peak hour traffic or something).
One of the areas I want to be able to exercise God's authority over is in interceding for social injustice around the world. I just have to seek God more for what His heartbeat is on each situation and how to pray with His love and His perspective and not my own biases, resentment and fear.
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