When I was a graduate student of physical therapy, we attended lab classes to practice what we learned in lectures. It was during those labs that I realized not one person in our class of forty students personified textbook ideals.

We were all flawed.

When we had a unit on posture, nobody had perfect posture. During exercise physiology class, some had excellent aerobic capacity, some anaerobic; some had great lifting strength; some good endurance—nobody had it all. We each had weaknesses.

Most of us weren’t even aware of our problem areas. Abnormal felt normal.

Our professors taught us that weaknesses often lead to injury or dysfunction; strong muscles tend to get even stronger, weak muscles get even weaker; when tasks are especially demanding those imbalances make us do compensatory movements that put us at greater risk for injury. We learned patient education and exercise techniques to activate and strengthen underused, atrophied muscles, and how to incorporate recovering muscles into whole body movement.

Since balanced strength minimizes injury and maximizes performance, our jobs as physical rehabilitation specialists were to identify patients’ problems and develop treatment plans to solve them.

I consider God as a “whole person” rehabilitation specialist. He deals with us in entirety—body, soul, and spirit. He is infinitely more insightful than a human therapist, and knows what within each of us is well developed, partially developed, and what has yet to emerge.

We each have our fortes and flaws. One person has enormous self-discipline but miniscule independent thinking. Another has mastery of a vocation, but poor relational skills. One mind has a surplus of facts, but shortage of wisdom. Another sees the small picture clearly, but lacks global vision, or the even larger view from God’s perspective.

Our God understands our strengths and weaknesses. He knows what skills, behaviors, talents, strategies, and paradigms are over- or under-used, and plans our training programs accordingly.

So how does God, the rehabilitation specialist, develop each of us? Does he target our strengths or our weaknesses?

As much as we humans like to rely on our strengths, it is our weaknesses that God is likely to prioritize. It isn’t to criticize them, but to develop them. His goal is always to heal our injuries and maximize our lives. He orchestrates life circumstances to target liabilities, to develop them to assets.

A man I’ll call Jack, once told me about his “rehab” experience. Jack admitted that with the exception of his work life, he was most comfortable letting others tell him what to think. He didn’t view it as his mind being owned by others, but as it being “the right way”.

Though his life and mind were regularly trapped in quicksand, Jack thought outside factors were to blame. He never considered himself as bearing any responsibly for his frequent journeys into muck.

Frustrated, he asked God for help and ended up the recipient of “patient education”:  God had given him the right to think, to make independent decisions, to disagree with and even oppose his maker. Jack had allowed others to violate the free will God honors. He’d let people lead him down paths of sinking sand.

Soon after, came the “strengthening exercises”: Jack found himself in circumstances that called on his weakness. Initially, he felt insecure considering issues and making decisions at odds with majority thinking. Once he used what he’d not used before, Jack never returned to his imbalanced, atrophied ways. The sanity and positive outcomes that accompanied truth and righteousness were his ongoing motivators.

We all have a chance to become strong in every area we possess. It is possible to be well rounded and whole, not just over-strong in some areas and weak in others. There are countless programs and professionals available to help, but to me only one is 100% reliable —

Only God provides all-encompassing rehabilitation that is brilliantly personalized, always in our best interests, certain to avert injuries, and guaranteed to maximize our lives.

1 Peter 5:10 (New Living Translation) –  “In his kindness God called you to share in his eternal glory by means of Christ Jesus. So after you have suffered a little while, he will restore, support, and strengthen you, and he will place you on a firm foundation.”

I walk almost every day. It’s a habit, a need even, a bi-product of many decades of daily runs. Linear bipedal locomotion is my time for thinking. Deep thinking. For whatever reason, my focus can be so intense that it’s hard to pull out of it. One of my sons long ago took note and conceived a diagnosis for my condition: EAD. Excessive Attention Disorder.

There is no better place to let my EAD go full-blown than on a track. No distractions. No cars. No routes to be mindful of.

This summer they are bringing the local 1950’s cinder track into the twenty-first century. When it’s done, I won’t be surprised if while I’m in full-blown EAD, the springy all-weather surface converts my walking to running. Wearing running tights instead of jeans did that to me one spring day. Lost in thought, I ran a half mile before I realized I was running for the first time in months.

When the equipment is parked, and the crews have gone home, I circle. And think. And listen for God’s direction on whatever life happened to send my way that day.

Meanwhile…

The track has so far changed from cinder to dirt, to mud, back to dirt, to loose gravel, and recently to packed gravel. It took me till the packed gravel stage to surface from a day’s deep thinking and notice…

the roots.

Long, long roots forging vertical lines in the dirt. Two to three feet deep. A perfect cross section. The anatomy of grass.

Which caused me to do some deep thinking about roots. They sure are long. Much longer than I realized. No wonder lawns recover after drought, scorching heat, or subzero temps.

And they sure are vertical. Aren’t they ever tempted to change it up a bit and wander horizontally or diagonally? If my thinking habits were roots, they’d be meandering and getting tangled quite a lot. My roots may even go skyward — any good ideas up there? Any solutions over yonder?

Grass roots are so … singularly focused. Down. Deep. Where the water is. No wonder roots are used so often as metaphors in the Bible.

I believe there’s something universal in the allegory of the roots. Something for all of us, regardless of our backgrounds or beliefs. Take away the faith and cultural lenses I’m looking through, and you take away yours. When it comes to basics, I wouldn’t be surprised to see our roots run parallel.

Looking for water. Striving for stability, sustainability. Needing truths. Preferring love. Requiring hope.

According to roots, we should ignore the non-grounded options in the air — they won’t do us any good. And we should try not to compete or entangle by growing horizontally or diagonally, all willy-nilly. If grass roots are able to take the efficient, equitable, straight course to what they need, we sure as grass roots should be able to do it, too.

First published on July 9, 2014.