Into Alignment

 I shake my head when I think back and realize just how often I've never been one to take the easy way toward anything. I've been a complicated case...always doing things in an unconventional way on my own time for my own reasons. And anytime I required adjustment, it always seems to have come at a high price and with lots of pain along the way. Almost as if God has intentionally taken me down the less-trodden paths in order to teach me His ways. 

Physically, I've had my share of issues - from struggling as a child with seizures to now living with depression and post traumatic stress-induced anxiety as an adult. The road less-traveled has been my frequent territory...and I haven't often liked it. I've fought it instead. Because it's hard to embrace the fact that your journey is just that: your journey. 

Uniqueness isn't always seen as a gift and sometimes you can fight what you ought to embrace simply because you're too blind to notice that all the hard things that shape you are simply adjusting you into the person you were always meant to become. 

Close to twenty years ago, I had to have some major orthodontic work done. It's a good thing I liked my orthodontist because I saw a lot of him during what turned out to be over five years of work in my mouth. It wasn't comfortable by any means, and I had to fight through a lot of pain most of the time. It was awfully inconvenient and just plain awkward. But I had no choice: I had to live with it for the sake of my eventual benefit. And boy, was I ever glad when it was all over and I no longer had to fuss with braces, head-gear, oral surgery, and a lot more! To feel normal again felt so good, but my little mouth would never be the same as before...and that was okay because I knew it was better than before. That was the intent. 

Over the years, I've gone in once in awhile for a checkup or minor adjustment so my orthodontist can ensure that things have continued to hold up as they should. Recently, I needed to go in again for what I thought was a tiny repair job on a permanent retaining wire I wear on the back of my front teeth only to discover when he looked into my mouth that one of my teeth had significantly moved since the last time I was in. In an instant, things went from a simple fix back to braces on my front teeth for the first time in around fifteen years. 

As I lay in the dental chair, a few thoughts crossed my mind of how ironically similar this felt to how I've discovered the Christian life to be... 

In the beginning of our walk with God, we're a serious piece of work most of us... He has a lot of adjusting to do just like my orthodontist did all those years ago, undoing the effects of sin and selfishness that have defined our past lives prior to salvation. The work is tedious, uncomfortable, and hard. And there is no way that we can do that work ourselves - we must trust that the Master knows what He is doing. 

Every time my orthodontist puts his skillful hands into my mouth, I trust him because He's done this so many times before and he knows my mouth better than just about anyone. We still laugh about that all these years later. I can relax and lean into the pain and the nuisance of it all because I know he knows what's best for me, and that's enough. 

Fighting the wise guidance of God never did get anyone anywhere productive. Resist His plan and think you've got a better plan and you'll find yourself in a far greater world of hurt than you ever imagine. 

Leaning in is all you can do. All you should do. All you must do. 

I also realized that, even as much as this felt like a slight setback and I never dreamt I'd have to ever wear braces again, I knew that this is a minor adjustment compared to where I started two decades earlier. This is tweaking, bringing into alignment. Gentle re-direction. 

If I am being sensitive to God, as I grow closer to Him over time and tune-in to His voice, the adjusting process ought to get a little less major over time. The challenges and the trials are the pressure He is using to move me back where I ought to be, to change my heart and renew my mind. Like the wandering tooth, God knows my heart is prone to lose its way and sometimes, He has to apply a little pain to nudge it back into the right direction. 

In order for a soul to become aligned with God's will, there must be some strain, some pressure. There must be some pain. And whoever thought sanctification came without a cost never knew the reality of following God. 

When the One who guides already said that, in order to be His disciple, one must deny themself, take up their cross and come after Him, do we really think that we can be moulded and shaped by anything other than a life with difficulty? 

Leaving the office, I told myself that this is only temporary - those braces will be off soon enough once the tooth has been set right once again - and I just need to steel myself for likely a few irritating weeks or months. It'll be over before I know it. 

And so is the message for anyone going through their own suffering... no pain lasts and what is left on the other side is a better, stronger you. If you trust the Hands that do the work, if you fall back on past experience and know that all the setbacks led to comebacks and all the hardship only served to shape you for good, then you embrace all the turns in the road. You accept the adversity as a friend and you envision it as God's tool to bring you into alignment. 

Perhaps being a complicated case isn't something to despise because, perhaps, we're all a complicated case under the guidance of an uncomplicated, all-knowing, wise God who takes all these things and redeems them as only He can.