The Microtears of Correction

     Recently, I was working out at the gym. My goal for the day- strengthening my muscles. As I went through my routine, I had an interesting question. How exactly are muscles strengthened? I knew it had something to do with resistance, but I had no idea how the process actually worked. The Holy Spirit prompted me to do research on the topic.

    When I began to do the research, I discovered something remarkable about the building of muscle. It is not the lifting of weights that builds the muscle but the recovery after the resistance training that builds the muscle. Whenever you lift weights, you are causing trauma or microtears to your muscles. In other words, parts of your muscle cells are being destroyed. The body's response to this trauma is to to repair it as well as replace the dead muscle cells with more cells. This leads to increase in muscle mass. Even more interesting is the fact that if you lift weights daily you will actually hinder your muscle development. This is because you are not allowing the muscles to recover from, replace, and increase your damaged muscle cells.

Correction and Spiritual Muscle

    This is the same process God uses when He corrects us. God doesn't tell us all of our flaws in some long drawn out list. He knows that kind of exposure would crush us. How could we even hope to conquer that list next to an omnipotent, omnipresent, omniscient, and most perfect God? Instead, God allows circumstances in our lives to reveal areas that we need to improve. The purpose of these circumstances or traumas is to reveal and destroy cells that are not like God. And like resistance training we are in pain at the revelation. There are moments where we seem paralyzed by the pain and wish it would come to an end. However, if you allow God to saturate your damaged flesh, He will renew and replace it with spiritual cells that will make you stronger and more of a threat to the Enemy. You see, it is the trauma and recovery that makes spiritual muscles grow.

An Ongoing Process

      Any fitness trainer will tell you that resistance training is a life-long process. When you started training, you may have only been able to handle 10 pound free weights, but as your muscle mass grows you must increase your level of resistance. 10 pounds to 20 pounds to 30 pounds and so on. If you don't increase the resistance, your muscle growth will become stagnate. Like physical resistance training, spiritual correction and development is an ongoing process. In other words, you should always expect new and more challenging levels of resistance to come against you. God is in the maturing and development business. He he has to tear down the areas in you that are not like Him, so He can build you up in His strength, power, and overall anointing. Don't be distressed. God always allows the recovery time you need before He promotes you to the next level of resistance training. Please note: God may not give you the amount of time you want, but He will give you the amount of time you need to recover.

     I Samuel 17:34-37 says, "But David said to Saul, “Your servant has been keeping his father’s sheep. When a lion or a bear came and carried off a sheep from the flock, I went after it, struck it and rescued the sheep from its mouth. When it turned on me, I seized it by its hair, struck it and killed it. Your servant has killed both the lion and the bear; this uncircumcised Philistine will be like one of them, because he has defied the armies of the living God. The Lord who rescued me from the paw of the lion and the paw of the bear will rescue me from the hand of this Philistine.”

     David learned from his earlier traumas with the lion and the bear what God could do. Do you think God would have made David's next challenge a battle with a grasshopper? Of course not! It was a colossal battle against family and idolatry. David was the runt of his brothers. When he came to the site of the battle, his brothers ridiculed him. After all, look at this nobody who says he can beat this somebody named Goliath. Goliath the giant. Goliath the arrogant. Goliath the idol worshiper. Goliath the defier of God of the Angel Armies. David, strengthened from his past resistance training experiences and filled with the renewed and replaced spiritual cells of God, used one stone and the anointing of God to destroy the Goliath.

The Critical Spirit and Correction

     Have you ever felt a yearning to alert somebody of their many flaws? It's a common urge when you feel like another person is very faulty. Too often, we feel it's our duty to alert them to the sea of issues in their life. We have the list and want to give it to them. One must be very cautious with this desire. Remember, God didn't give you your list of issues (and you have many) at one time. He knew the right time and allowed the right circumstances to cause those microtears in your muscles. He allowed you to master the 10 pound weights before you moved on to more intense training.

     When we give a person a list of what we consider their shortcomings, it's like making a 500 lb man try to lift a 300 pound weight. The man is out of shape and lifting a 300 pound weight will damage his body. God starts where we are and develops a spiritual fitness plan to get us where we need to be. That's proper training. That's love. That's God!

     More importantly, if God didn't ask you to point out somebody else's issues, just keep your mouth closed! If they are doing something against the Word of God, pray for them. Allow God to handle it. Maybe God is not ready to address that area in their life. Better yet, maybe the issue is YOU! Why is it when people don't do things the way we would do them we want to say the other person has an issue? Maybe God is trying to teach you something. Imagine that! And if God wants you to address an issue with another person allow the Holy Spirit to give you the wisdom to counsel effectively. As a Believer, you want to draw the person closer to God through His correction and not away from God by your condemnation.

The Cool Down- So what have we learned?

1. Correction is a process. God allows forms of resistance to tear down negative strongholds and  provides a period of recovery to replace the damaged cells with godly strength.
2. Spiritual growth is ongoing and increases through greater resistance and more of God.
3. Seek God's face before correcting others. Only God knows the correct timing and methodology to use.
4. Don't ever give a person a list of flaws. No one can handle or address that level of criticism. God didn't do it to us, so we can't do it to others.
5. Remember that what may be a flaw to you may be considered an area of strength by God. You're not the measuring stick of how things should be done. God is a God of variety and methodologies.