Scrambling down the Lava Falls Route in Grand Canyon National Park, Arizona

We are very intricately made objects.  Our bodies work beyond the understanding of even the most brilliant doctors of this world.  They can explain things, but even after centuries of studies, they still don’t understand every function of the human body.

Ladders take a different set of muscles than hiking. Alcove House Trail, Bandelier National Monument, New Mexico

Not the least of these functions is our muscles.  We use them every day – to breathe, to walk, to sit, to stand, to eat – but we don’t necessarily think about them until we use muscles we aren’t used to using.  Then, suddenly, we remember the muscles are there, sometimes painfully so.

Hiking up the Zion Narrows, Zion National Park, Utah

There are muscles we use every day and muscles we use only on occasion.  Every movement uses a different set of muscles.

Scrambling down the steep hillside to Dundee Creek, Wyoming

For example, riding in the van for days on end, crossing the country, uses a set of muscles.  It’s a little different than the muscles I use in normal life.  Then I start hiking, and I find I am using muscles I haven’t been using – or not using as hard – recently.

Hiking toward New Alto, Chaco Culture National Historical Park, New Mexico

Start scrambling scree slopes – different muscles.  Steep downhills into the Grand Canyon – shin splints.  All four limbs to scramble up a near-sheer cliff or slickrock – arm muscles have to work, too.

Atop Lava Mountain after scrambling up the rocky slopes, Wyoming

Sometimes our muscles complain if they haven’t been worked up into their new use.  I can get up the morning after our first hike on a trip and feel “stiff all over”.  It’s a hazard of not staying in shape quite the way we might have wanted.

Descending – or ascending – the trail to Hidden Lake Lookout will give you muscles! North Cascades National Park, Washington

Our spiritual lives have muscles, too.  When we’re stepping into new territory, a new season, our muscles may ache or be stiff because we haven’t used those muscles recently, or maybe ever.

Climbing down Angel’s Landing, Zion National Park, Utah

The first time I ride a bicycle in the spring, my legs can be pretty stiff.  In fact, I might hobble back from the garage like a city girl who just rode a horse for the first time.  And those hills are a bit of a challenge.  But by the end of the summer, riding a bike is as natural as walking around the house; the bigger the hill, the bigger the joy of reaching the top.

Biking along the Erie Canal, New York

The first time we step out in faith in a new place in God, our spiritual muscles may be stiff, or even not very strong.  We find we aren’t strong enough to handle this new situation on our own (not the worst place to be if it means we rely more on Christ and the Holy Spirit to get us through!)  But just because it’s hard now doesn’t mean our spiritual muscles won’t acclimate.

Buttermilk Falls Natural Area, Mendham, New Jersey

I’ve led worship for probably close to 15 years.  Starting out, I wasn’t very good (read: quite unprofessional, and not very technically good, either), but it seems fairly easy.  I was so proud the day I found I could play and sing without watching my hands and the music every single second.  I recently picked up a new instrument, and I’m again finding the struggle of not being very good.  It’s taking work and a lot of new muscles to become a player anyone would want to hear (read: those arm muscles are getting a workout!)

Sunset high in the mountains above the Grand Canyon, en route to the Whitmore Trail, Arizona

Our spiritual muscles become strong through practice.  But one of the cool things is that we never know every single spiritual muscle we have.  Hypothetically, we use our arm muscles and become strong, then find that there are still leg muscles to become proficient using, then that the glutes are useful, too.  It’s an adventure to discover each new spiritual muscle and learn to use it.  Frightening some times because it’s so new and different, but working with God, it is a joy to discover who He created us to be.

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