becoming a faith gumby

I have a new job. And I am learning a thing or two about muscle tension and stretching. My boss' mascot is Gumby the claymation figure of a tv series from the 50's. While strength is important, he holds the opinion that the body is less susceptible to injury when the soft tissues are actually able to absorb energy and change lengths.

If he says to you "holy toledo, you're tight!" you know that you're in for a bit of stretching.

What I am learning is that the length and tension of muscles has a pretty big impact on the supporting frame, our skeletons, and that stretching the muscles can change, for the better, our posture, our body positioning, our pain.

Now, it's no secret really, that stretching is not so comfortable. It can be downright painful. However, it is a good and necessary pain that will prevent and perhaps reverse damage to the body. So I see that if I will not take care to stretch myself, either things will continue in the current direction, or I may have to hand myself over to be stretched.

My faith is sometimes like a tight muscle. And I can tell you that like the others, the stretching of my faith is often quite uncomfortable.  Once it becomes a little less tender, more supple, more willing to trust in one direction, I am often stretched in quite another direction... one in which I never knew I was so tight.

So as I am being stretched, I'm learning, and trusting that like physical stretching, this stretching of my faith is also beneficial. For God is good. And not nearly so smug as I am when others are at my mercy.