I felt I could no longer endure the painful trial going on in my life for so long. In frustration, I cried out to God. "What are You doing to me?" He said, "I'm making a man of God out of you!" He continued, "I did not cause your pain but I'm using it."
The orthopedic doctor calls it a frozen shoulder. Jesus calls it healed. It's a muscle beneath the shoulder that becomes locked up and is painful. The orthopedic doctor said, "You must stretch your arm to loosen that muscle. Here are six exercises twice a day for six weeks including hanging on a bar. You must stretch your arm until it hurts. Then lean into the hurt and count for twenty seconds with excruciating pain and then repeat." After a few exercises I thought about the doctor, "He's got to be kidding me! It feels like I'm tearing my muscle apart. Like I'm ripping it out of my arm."
Is It a Good Pain or a Bad Pain?
He also advised me to visit a massage therapist. As she was working on my arm muscle I had to let her know something. "It hurts! That's painful!" She asked me a question, "But is it a good pain or a bad pain?" I said, "I am a no pain person."
I was told if you want to recover faster, you can have someone else stretch your arm because they will pull it farther than you would. I thought to myself, "How stupid is that?" But in desperation to end this ordeal, I chose a physical therapist to stretch my arm. The pain was so great, I laughed. I said to him, "Am I going crazy? Why did I laugh when I felt the worse pain of my life?" He said, "That's your release! That laughter is your release!"
I now believe pain can be an ingredient of laughter. I promise if you are now in pain that is beyond words, there will be a time when you will laugh again, and even drown in God's laughter. "Blessed are you who weep now, for you shall laugh." Luke 6:21
There was a time when my pain almost stopped my ministry. On a ministry trip I became powerless to the pain that justified me not going to the next meeting. My wife and I prayed, but no relief. I phoned home to our intercessors for prayer. One intercessor, after praying, said, "Bill, you are on a mission. God has sent you there. You can trust Him." Something clicked in my spirit. I dragged my body to that meeting. The moment I stood up to minister the pain left me.
After the meeting it returned with a vengeance. It fought me to the next meeting two days later. When I got up to minister it left again and then followed me home. As this took place with many of my meetings, something dawned on me. I am stretching my spiritual muscles! I want to encourage you. Sometimes you must walk through some stuff to get to where God is. But remember, you are on a mission and the great I AM has sent you!
Spiritual Frozen Muscles in the Body of Christ
Many times what I experience in my physical body is what is going on in the Body of Christ. I sense the Lord showing there are some spiritual frozen muscles in His Body.
And I hear the Lord saying, "You need to stretch those muscles. Stretch until it hurts! Many of your healings will come while you are being stretched by others. I am stretching you this season out of your frozenness. I am stretching your arms farther than you would like, so they can reach around a world full of pain, sin and brokenness.Those frozen muscles will thaw from the fire of My Spirit as you allow Me to stretch you."
Being Stretched Against the Odds
A woman kept standing for the healing of her husband who suffered a stroke, leaving a third of his brain dead. The doctor said to her, "He will never fully recover and will be a vegetable the rest of his life." The woman said, "No, by the stripes of Jesus he is healed." The doctor got upset with her and said, "I don't think you are taking me seriously. I have been doctoring these cases for thirty years." The woman responded, "Jesus has been healing longer than that!" Nine days later he walked out of the hospital whole.
"And it shall come to pass in that day, that his burden (the enemy's burden)shall be taken away from off thy shoulder, and his yoke from off thy neck, and the yoke shall be destroyed because of the anointing." Isaiah 10:27
After several months of pain, prayers of many, stretching exercises and some laser treatment, my frozen shoulder is finally loosed. The pain is gone. God has intervened again in my life.
But I have noticed something. If I don't keep stretching, the muscle will freeze again. It's the same spiritually. Lord, help us to keep stretching and allowing You to stretch us beyond our pain.
Bill Yount
Blowing the Shofar Ministries
Replies
My God, I know that I may not be reading these in the right order but it is building something so new and bold in me. Lord I entreat thee to stretch out in me like never before. No more hidden rooms, stale sacrifices, last minute dried up praise, but I give you the best of me and all that there is of me. I am yours oh Lord and You alone know what is best for me. Let me never get in a position where I am desensitized to Your move.
This is an awesome article, and it was a blessing to read. This article helped shine the light on the different challenges and adversities that I have experienced. I understand that the adversities are the lessons of life, that exercises our spiritual muscles and make us healthy and strong. And the more battles we fight the more victories we will win. Battles fought in the mind will eventually affect the physical, if not won in the battlefield of the mind, so bring every thought into the captivity of Christ. We are body, soul and spirit, be a good steward of each. Exercise your body muscles and be strong physically! Exercise your mind and be strong in your convictions! Exercise your spiritual muscles and stand strong against the powers of darkness!
God is preparing us for the faith process , although we do not see the end result, God is working it out for our good, he's training us through our pains, for spiritual exercises.
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This story reminds me of a women travailing with pain. The nurse is telling the women to breathe and push when she has nothing left to push with she is out of breath and push. But some kind of way in her she finds another push. She pushes again knowing that on the other side of her travailing pain there is a baby being born, and at the end her pain and pushing she is rewarded with her works of labor. Its a built in mechanism that God has put in us all to stretch or push beyond what we can see, feel, or touch. It called faith without works is dead.
While in pain you keep trusting in God that he will heal you, your faith can be stretched beyond the limit. God knows how far we can stretch and how much pain we can endure. Faith will stretch us through our spiritual warfare. Glory to God, without faith we can not be healed. I can relate to this but can't imagine not having faith while going through tribulations. It's impossible.
This is the most encouraging thing I am read in a long time it opens my eyes too so much. I felt the scales coming off my eyes as I read this article. But I also feel bad because people are still frozen spiritual and have not stretched their spiritual muscles. My question is this how exactly do you stretch your spiritual muscles I know this man of god said he kept doing God's work the mission God sent him to do but is that all?
Wow! This is awesome! It makes so much sense when you can look at your natural situation, be it a relationship or physical case and understand it from a spiritual stand point. God gives us spiritual signs in the form of a vision, dream, pain, relationship or some other way to get us to understand the war fare that is going on around us.
Often times when we ourselves are going through a trial, that is when God uses us the most to be a witness and to minister to others. We know that out of our pain produces much for the Kingdom when we push pass the pain.
Life's lessons can be tough, but we know that having the grace and mercy of God we are strong and mighty,
We can do all things through Christ that strengthens us!
Everyone is dealing with something and it's all in how we deal with it that counts, we can go through with a smile on our face or we can go through being bitter, but God wants us to endure like good soldiers as we be about our fathers business.
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