Limping Through Life

By Timothy Vowell

Pastor of Faith Family Fellowship

and President of Relationships for Christ Ministries

www.rfcministries.org

I was having lunch with a friend of mine and we were talking about where we had been in life and how that had shaped our lives.  Both of us had to admit that there were some things we were not very good at because of the challenges we have faced.   It got me to thinking about this very popular passage from Romans and I know we all are aware of it, but maybe we need to remind ourselves.

Romans 12:1

I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service. And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.

Paul uses a very special word when he says to not be “conformed” to this world.  The word he uses in the Greek is syschēmatizō and linguist tell us that this is where we get our modern word schematic.  Paul entreats us to not live by the schematic that this world has for us but be transformed to God’s “good and acceptable and perfect will”.

We are crazy if we think that only God has plans for people.  The truth is this world has a plan for each of our lives and if we allow it, that plan will dictate our actions and our reponses.   Many of us have gone tough times and lived with terrible hurts.  If we are not careful those things with work as a pattern or plan in our lives to exert the will of the enemy over us.

But Paul says that we should not live according to that but be transformed through the renewing of our mind.  I have come to find that the difference between living according to the blue print of God or the schematic of the enemy, depends primarily on my thinking.  I fear without rational reason for fear because of my thinking.  I feel alone with people all around me because of my thinking.  I do all this because the enemy is trying to get me to live according to “his will”.

My response should be a change of mind.  I have to ask, “are the things I am doing today a response to my renewing or are they a response to the schematic of the world”.  

A man once prayed over me in prayer line and he prayed a prayer I won’t soon forget.  He prayed, “Lord help Timothy to not walk with a limp.”   The Lord was leading him to pray what he saw in a spiritual sense.  The world had wounded me and for the longest I had been dealing with that wound.  Long after the wound healed, I still had the limp. The plan of the enemy had become an indelible pattern on my life.  

Isn’t it time we start walking in the “good and acceptable and perfect will” of God.  I mean without the limp.  We know that the battle is mostly in our mind because the work has already been done on Calvary.  I purpose today to walk differently.  To not follow the schematic of this world, love at a deeper level, forgive at a deeper level, have more grace toward others at a deeper level, to even show mercy, acceptance, and affirmation at a deeper level.  It is time to give up the limps of our lives, to  stop shuffeling through our lives, and start living them the way God really wants us to!