Learning to Love your Limp

What’s your limp?  In all my years of ministry I have never met someone who doesn’t have a limp. It may be a physical, relational, emotional, a spiritual battle or a a combination of all four that has hobbled them. A few weeks ago I touched on the story of Jacob wrestling with God for a blessing that would bring healing to his wounded heart (see Gen. 32).

But along with the blessing of encountering God face to face he was left with a limp. God lightly touched his hip socket and for the rest of his life he walked around the land of promise with a noticeable hitch in his step. His family, friends, and those who knew him before this divine encounter likely asked, “What happened to you?” And what a story he had to tell.

But why would God do this, wasn’t this cruel on God’s part? Jacob did not think so as you read on in the story:

“So Jacob called the place Peniel, saying, ‘for I have seen God face-to-face, and yet my life has been delivered.'” (vs. 30).

Jacob should have died as a sinner, wrestling with a Holy God, but instead he came away with a blessing of the Father’s love and a new name to forever be reminded of the moment of God’s amazing grace that changed His heart with love.

Every step he now took in pain after the event would remind him of God’s mercy and grace and to live in total dependence on the Father’s love for Him. His limp would remind him of God’s supernatural power and filling His heart with the blessing of His love through the Holy Spirit.

The older I get the more thankful I am for the limps in my life. The pain and times of suffering over the years and the wrestling matches I have had with God continue to teach me of His loving grace. Suffering has been a great teacher to remind me I’m not in control. My sinful pride easily wants to make me think I am somehow in control and that I can be my own little god over my world. But I humbly praise God for how suffering quickly brings me back to reality.

The limp of suffering reminds me of how I need to step-by-step surrender to the One who is  Sovereign over every detail of my existence. His path and not mine leads me to my Father’s home of healing and wholeness through overflowing rivers of love poured into my heart. I’m learning to love my limps because they have been gifts to lead me to the perfect love given to me in Jesus by way of my Father.

I love how Timothy Keller put it in his book “Counterfeit Gods”;

“The blessing through that Spirit that is ours through Christ – is what Jacob received, and it is the only remedy against idolatry…As with Jacob, we usually discover this only after a life of looking for blessing in all the wrong places. It often takes an experience of crippling weakness for us to finally discover it. That is why so many of the most God-blessed people limp as they dance for joy.” (p. 164)

Our limps open us up for the power of His Holy Spirit to flow into our weakest places and use them for a testimony for His glory.

“My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’ Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me.” 2 Cor. 12:9