Last week, I surpassed a much anticipated milestone in my recovery from major reconstructive back surgery on May 9th. Before the surgery, Dr. Winer said it would take about three months for my spine to fuse well enough to the point where I could begin to resume some of my normal everyday activities. So, August 9th was a day I’ve had marked on my calendar since the day my surgery was scheduled. But it came and went with hardly a notice as the sobering realization has now set in that my return to any degree of normalcy is going to take much longer than the three months I originally anticipated. And while this has certainly proved to be a considerable setback in my recovery, I can see now that God had another milestone in mind for my recovery that would prove to be far more significant than any I could have imagined prior to the surgery.
On July 11th I had my two month follow up with Dr. Winer so he could evaluate how my recovery was progressing. The evaluation included having some x-rays taken so he could confirm there had been no failure in the instrumentation that was used to stabilize my spine. I knew that seeing these images for the first time would come as a quite a shock. To ease my anxiety, Dr. Winer shared some x-rays of other patients (who remained anonymous) who had undergone similar procedures prior to my surgery. I thought the impact of seeing those images had mentally prepared me for the climactic moment of seeing my own. But I soon learned that nothing could have prepared me for that experience.
As I stared at the images, all I could see were the titanium rods and screws that literally jumped off the monitor. But Dr. Winer pointed out something of far greater importance that I had entirely missed. I sat mesmerized in my chair as he proceeded to describe the process of reshaping the entire lower half of my spine during the more than five hour procedure. He started out by showing me the MRI of my spine taken before the surgery and explained how the degenerative disc condition in my lower back had altered the contour of my spine and essentially caused it to flatten out. He then described the multi-step process by which he restored my spine to its original design.
After making a foot-long incision in the mid-line of my back and retracting the muscles and tissue surrounding the spine, what remained of the original disc material following my previous back surgeries was removed. Synthetic cages, packed with bone material harvested from my hip, were then inserted to each of the disc spaces in order to restore the natural alignment and spacing between the vertebrae. The vertebrae were then carefully manipulated to restore the natural curve that had flattened out in the lower half of my spine. Lastly, a series of titanium rods and screws were then surgically implanted into four sets of vertebrae to secure the spine in place and allow time for the all the vertebrae and bone grafts to fuse together into one solid piece.
When Joel finished describing this process, I was speechless as I contemplated what he had done. My perspective was now entirely altered. Before his explanation, the only thing I could see in the pictures was all the instrumentation that was holding my spine together. After his explanation, the instrumentation was obscured by the beautifully reshaped curve in the lower half of my spine that would at long last restore the proper functioning of my back and hopefully relieve most of the pain I had been experiencing for so many years.
I spent the remainder of the day pondering the image of Dr. Winer painstakingly and meticulously reshaping my spine and restoring it to its intended design. The thought then began to slowly unfold in my mind how this was a perfect metaphor for what God accomplishes in our hearts through our relationship with His Son, Jesus Christ. Throughout the four Gospels recorded in the New Testament, we find a common thread that is woven through all of Jesus’ teachings. He tells us that our essential problem is that our heart is not right and that it does not function according to its original design. Nowhere is this teaching more evident than in what I consider to be the greatest of all Jesus’ teachings, The Sermon on the Mount, recorded in the Gospel of Matthew.
I will never forget the first time I read those words. I would equate the experience of reading The Sermon of the Mount to seeing my x-rays in Dr. Winer’s office that day. The only difference was this x-ray revealed the degenerative condition of my heart. Jesus’ words penetrated through the seemingly healthy exterior of my life and revealed there was something seriously wrong on the inside. They shattered the illusion of my own well-being and opened my eyes to see that behind all my good works and outward conformity to the moral law of God, there lived in my heart a toxic mixture of pride, anger, greed, lust, and self-righteousness. And they diagnosed the source of all all my unrest, all my discontentment, and all that was not right with my life – I had a diseased heart that no longer functioned according to its original design.
In its essence, the Bible is the story of man losing God and in the process losing his true identity, and his true heart. For when we lost God, our hearts were severed from the source that gives it life. The end result of this disconnection is that our hearts are now naturally inclined toward self, and self-interest becomes our predominant fixation. Consequently, we embark on a never-ending quest for relevance and significance in order to satisfy our insatiable need for self-esteem. But sooner or later, we all discover that no amount of self-fulfillment can ever satisfy the longing of the human heart that has been designed to find its highest fulfillment in the One who created it.
But the good news of the Bible is that God does not leave us alone in this helpless state. From Genesis to Revelation, the Bible is the story of God’s redemptive plan for humanity that He immediately put into action when the first man, Adam, chose a life of independence and self-determination apart from his Creator. The culmination of this plan occurred two millennia ago when God sent his only Son, Jesus, into the world to restore what had been lost. The beauty of the gospel is that in Christ, God came to reconcile us to Himself and restore our broken union with Him. And when that union is restored, God reunites our heart with His and begins the process of molding and reshaping our heart back to its intended design.
During the past month, I have slowly begun to realize that this was the milestone that God wanted me to remember when I reflect back on this experience. While I had been focused on my recovery and returning to activity, God had another goal in mind – to remind me that the restoration of my heart is far more important that the restoration of my back. Yes, that work had begun 14 years earlier when I first crossed the line of faith and accepted Christ as my Lord and Savior. But through Joel’s explanation, God revealed that I had been impeding His progress by allowing other things to capture my heart and interrupt my relationship with Him. While many of these things could even be considered good things, like working in a ministry or helping those in need, in the end they become counterfeit gods when we make them ultimate things and give them the place in our hearts that only God should occupy.
There is no denying that this has been an extremely difficult journey for me, both physically and emotionally. There have been lots of ups and downs along the way, and there are still many days when I am ready to give up all hope of ever returning to a “normal” life and resuming many of the activities I love so much. But through it all, I have now come to see that this experience has really been a blessing in disguise. For it has forced me to slow down and recognize that I was on a perilous path and in danger of not finishing well had God not so graciously intervened.
I firmly believe that if we are attentive to the gentle prodding of the Holy Spirit, we will be able to hear the voice of Jesus speaking to us. And on that day when I left Dr. Winer’s office, I clearly heard Jesus saying to me that the the process of restoring my heart to its intended design is not yet complete. And though my spine had been successfully restored thanks to the gifted hands of Dr. Winer, the work of restoring my heart had only just begun. There was so much more restructuring that needed to be done.
However, the real wake up call came when I realized that this work would only continue to the degree that I was determined to continually abide in His presence, day by day and moment by moment, so that His divine love could flow into the chamber of my own heart. What a fool I had been to think that I could be like Jesus without ever being with him. Or that I could have a heart like his when I continually make other things, even good things, more of a priority than my uninterrupted fellowship with him.
This is the ever present danger we as Christ followers all face when we fail to seek Him with all our hearts. As we allow ourselves to be separated from this divine union, the pulse of Christ ceases to beat in our hearts and degeneration quickly sets in once again. The life of Christ begins to withdraw and self reclaims its throne and asserts its rightful place in our hearts. Self-interest returns as the animating principle of our lives and even our most noble works are as filthy rags to God, as their motives are rooted in our inherent need for meaning, purpose, adoration and affirmation. This is precisely why Jesus gave his disciples this sober warning, recorded in the Gospel of John.
“Remain in me, and I will remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me. I am the vine, you are the branches. If a man remains in me, and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.”
When we reflect back on our experience of becoming a Christ follower, we usually have no trouble remembering the first invitation of Jesus when he said, “Come unto me.” Our trouble is we often forget or entirely neglect the second invitation of Jesus when he said, “Come abide in me.” After seeing my x-rays and hearing Dr. Winer’s explanation of how he had reconstructed my back, I slowly awoke to the reality that this indeed was my trouble as well. I too had been neglecting his second invitation and failing to heed the warning of King Solomon to guard my heart above all else, for it is the wellspring of life (Proverbs 4:23). As this revelation began to take hold of my mind, I was shaken to the core when I realized that Jesus will go to any lengths, even total reconstructive back surgery if necessary, to ensure that I never again neglect his invitation to continually abide in His presence every day and all the day.
But how can I be so sure that this pattern of failing to abide in Christ will not continue once I am fully recovered from my surgery and the normal demands of work and life threaten to once again consume me and draw me away from His presence? And what will prevent this experience from becoming a distant memory one month from now, one year from now, or one decade from now? The answer can be found all throughout the Old Testament in God’s dealings with the nation of Israel. Just as God directed the Israelite’s to erect monuments, or milestones, to serve as reminders of His faithfulness and deliverance from their enemies, so has Jesus has erected a virtual milestone in the center of my heart that can never be torn down or removed from my consciousness – the image of a beautiful x-ray that will long serve to remind me and inspire me to seek His presence above all other things, so that I may experience His divine power reshaping and restoring my heart to its original design. But unlike the milestones of ancient Israel which have long since vanished from the Middle Eastern landscape, this milestone is sure to stand the test of time.
Missionguy 
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