Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Welcome to Friday's edition of the weekday podcast. Super grateful you're here. If by chance you haven't listened to any other episodes this week, I would encourage you to scroll back in your app and check it out as each of these episodes link together and they point forward. And I'm just so glad you're here. If you find these podcasts helpful, if you don't mind, would you like, review, follow, subscribe, do all the things on whatever platform you're on. If you could review the podcast, that'd be helpful. Our hope is to help even more people find encouragement, and the best way to do that is, is for you to tell the algorithm, hey, this is helpful. Well, today on the podcast, I am opening with this confession that I'm of the age that I've had physical therapy multiple times in my lifetime. In fact, a few years ago, my therapist was actually somebody that grew up here at the church and has gone off to school and is an incredible therapist now. She's sweet, amazing. Her and her husband are great people, their family.
[00:00:54] She knows me, she knows Laura, she knows our church. But I'm telling you, there has never been one time when I went to her that she stretched me. That she stretched me to the point of comfort.
[00:01:05] There was a moment in every single session where she got my arm at an angle and pushed and pushed and pushed on it further than I thought I could do. Like, I'm making a face like I'm about to pass out. And she says to me in this calm, cheerful voice, she just says, two more inches. Now, it doesn't feel like healing while it's happening, right? It just doesn't. It feels like it's. My shoulder's getting broken. It feels like something's being taken from me, possibly a ligament pro, possibly tearing something. It's only later when I can use my shoulder again, move my arm in the full range of motion. It's only then that I realized the stretch was the whole point. Well, Paul says in Ephesians 4, verse 15, he says, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in all aspects into him.
[00:01:54] Now, in his day and age, in his language, speaking the truth was actually one word. It's the word literally truthing, not a conversation you have occasionally. It's a way of living. And Paul refuses to let us separate truth from love. Truth without love is just cruelty with good aim. Love without truth is just flattery that leaves you exactly where it found you.
[00:02:17] Growth in this body doesn't come from the top down. It comes from every Connection point doing its small part, which, if you've ever grown physically, spiritually, usually comes with some discomfort attached. If it never stretches, it isn't growing, it's just getting older. So think about the last time somebody in your life told you something true that you didn't want to hear.
[00:02:39] Did you let it stretch you? Or did you find a reason to write it off?
[00:02:43] Some of us have built entire friend groups where nobody's allowed to say the hard thing, and we've called it peace. It's not peace. It's a body that stopped growing and started just getting older in place. Which brings me back to my arm for Monday. Eventually, that morning, it woke back up. Pins and needles, painful for about 30 seconds or so. And then it worked again like nothing had happened. It didn't take a miracle. It just needed blood moving through it again.
[00:03:10] Now, you don't become the church by standing, speaking, serving, and stretching. You do those things because you already are the church. And so if there's part of you, or maybe part of this body that's technically attached but functionally asleep, the fix was never complicated. It just needs movement. It just needs movement. And so I want to encourage you, let's gather. Let's gather as one body this Sunday to continue living this out. And I'd love for you to be there in the room, not just watching from the couch. Bring whatever part of you still needs to wake up. There's a place for it here at Sugar Hill Church. If it never stretches, it isn't growing, it's just getting older. Have a great day, and we'll see you soon.
