Living with a Limp

And Elijah came near to all the people and said, “How long will you go limping between two different opinions? If the LORD is God, follow him; but if Baal, then follow him.” And the people did not answer him a word. 1 Kings 18:21

Prior to my knee replacement in 2022, my knee had been deteriorating for years. Multiple injuries had left me with little cartilage and steadily increasing pain. For years, I’d gotten by with steroid injections, but the last six months prior to surgery just kept getting worse. By the end, it was difficult to simply walk down the hall, and though I refused to use it, I kept a cane in my office. Still, I wavered on the decision to have surgery. It sounds silly now, but I had my reservations. How bad will the pain be? I wouldn’t take opioids and so, I knew it was going to hurt. How much function will I get back? I wasn’t ready to be done at the gym. How long will I be out of work?

Looking back, it did hurt, and I was out of work for a couple of weeks, but those concerns all seem like minor inconveniences now. My knee works and I can walk with no pain. I’m back at the gym and the cane no longer sits in my office. I probably should have done it sooner, but I just wasn’t ready to be done limping. I had to get to the point where I was just so sick of limping that I was ready to go through the discomfort of fixing it.

This seems to be where the Israelites found themselves in today’s passage. They believed in God, claiming to follow him, yet they worshipped Baal. Angered, God sent Elijah to confront them about their idol worship. Unable or unwilling to commit 100% to either god, they wallowed in ambivalence, limping through life, alienating themselves further from the real God. To this, Elijah said – Enough! How long will you limp around like this? Handicapped by their idol worship, they kept causing themselves painful consequences, yet they remained unwilling to abandon those idols.

A lot of us have found ourselves here, clinging to something that we know makes us miserable, yet unwilling to do what it takes to cut it out of our lives. To this, God asks the same thing. How long will you limp around like this? We know how painful it will be to abandon it, so we live with the limp, refusing the new life God has waiting for us. It’s only going to get worse though. So, if we’re sick of the pain, then today, we must figure out what it will take to cut that limp out of our lives. Then, we must do it.