Resisting the comfortable

A couple of years ago I quite badly damaged my back by trying to lift a fairly light object in an incorrect manner (bend your knees, not your back!)  I suppose it was an easy mistake to make, but boy did I pay for it over the following days.  The worst part was trying to get up the following day after a night in bed.  My back had seized up, and the pain of trying to get out of bed was excruciating.  I can’t remember how long it took me, but when I eventually got myself upright I vowed to sleep in a chair until such time as the back pain had diminished.  I think it was only 2 or 3 nights before I plucked up the courage to return to my bed, and eventually my back returned to normal.

They do say that a wise person learns by their mistakes, in which case I can’t be all that wise because I did the very same thing again last Sunday morning.  I bent over to pick something up and as I began to lift, a searing pain flashed cross my lower back.  I managed to gently hobble through the rest of the day, but once again it was getting out of bed the following morning which proved to be the big problem.  The pain wasn’t anything like as bad as on the previous occasion, but it still took me what seemed like ages to do what normally I would be able to do without a second thought.

Whilst I was lying in bed, resting my back (aided by the comfort of a hot water bottle!), I was relatively at ease and pain free.  When I made the effort to rouse myself and leave the comfort of the bed, the pain came in waves, as my spine took the pressure of bearing the weight of my upper body.  The great temptation was to stay in bed; it would certainly have made for a less painful day, and I wouldn’t have had to go through the initial agony of getting up and moving about.  But by staying in bed I would have missed out on doing things I needed to do.  Once I did get up and start moving about, the pain began to reduce.  It was only by breaking free from the temptation of the warm bed that I was able to have a relatively fruitful, if somewhat restricted, day.

This episode has reminded me of how in life we so often like to stay in the place of security and comfort.  It seems so much more attractive to stick with what we know; when the challenge comes to move out into new things, the potential pain and uncertainty of what might follow can tempt us to stay where we are.  Some years ago, John Ortberg wrote a great book called, “If You Want To Walk on Water, You’ve Got To Get Out Of The Boat.”  The title comes from a passage in Matthew’s gospel when Peter stepped out of the boat and began to walk on the water to Jesus.  Though he did eventually begin to sink (before Jesus reached out and saved him), he was the only one of the disciples who had the courage to actually step onto the water.  The others preferred the comfort of the boat.

Two things I’m going to try and do in future: 

1. If something needs lifting, remember to bend those knees!  

2. Resist the temptation to stay in the comfortable place when a challenge arises: be prepared to step out of the boat.