Skill is measured in heart

Train accordingly

A somatic look at Proverbs 24:10

There’s a story in Psalm 78 that haunts me.

Highly trained soldiers from the tribe of Ephraim march into battle with their weapons. They’re equipped and prepared to fight, but seeing the enemy, they turn their backs on the battle and run home in fear. The weapons carried in with vigor are carried home, unused.

Muscle, but no strength. Trained, but no courage. Equipped, but in the face of fear, faithless.

Training, education, experience, knowledge, physical power and strength are all lovely in safe, unchallenged conditions. But none of these things count for anything if they aren’t practiced and put to use under pressure.

Proverbs 24:10 says it this way: If you fail under pressure, your strength is too small. In Hebrew, the Proverb reads: If you faint on the day of distress or trouble, your strength is limited, narrow.

Train all you want. Learn all you want. Acquire unoppressive power, if you are able to do so. But don’t be deceived—true skill is determined by right action in distress. Adversity will come, and when it does, weakness will be exposed. Every doubt buried under your successes and accomplishments will be realized. Powerlessness will be felt bone-deep. Your nervous system will react (as it is designed to do) and the message sent to the brain will not be: “Charge straight into this perilous situation that makes you afraid.” As I mentioned last week, the nervous system propels us toward self-protection and pulls us from situations where faith and courage are being asked of us.

So how does one develop authority over the body and guide it into obedience when the spiritual realities of faith contradict the physical realities of fear?

Let’s return to Psalm 78 and see what it says caused the warriors of Ephraim to refuse walking into battle as God instructed (nervous system and instinct aside). The answer might surprise you: forgetfulness. They forgot God’s acts of faithfulness. They forgot the wonders and miracles He had shown them in the wilderness. They had been weak before, and God had provided, but they had not trained their hearts to remember.

True skill is determined by the heart. If you want to guide the body in obedience when the spiritual realities of faith contradict the physical realities of fear, you must train your heart more rigorously than you train your body and brain. The tender ground of heart training is where self-perception and trust in God are aligned. It is where humility, acceptance, willingness, and remembrance are encouraged to flourish, so that when the moment comes, you remember God’s faithfulness first, and you run with courage rather than running in fear.

Challenge for the week:

Reflect on the following questions with the Lord. Journal your answers with specificity.

1. What are you being called into that you know you are resisting—or running from?

2. What is the resistance? What are the physical sensations, mental images, or specific fears that make you want to run, avoid, make excuses, procrastinate, hide, or pour your energy into something else?

3. Are these physical sensations, mental images, or specific fears familiar? In other words, are they connected to a past experience? How?

4. Sit with the memory of that past experience, if you feel safe doing so (not comfortable, but safe). Ask someone you love to sit with you. Before you review the memory (no talking necessary), ask the Lord to reveal His presence and power in that experience in a way you hadn’t noticed before.

Lord, when I feel my courage melting in _______________ (name a specific situation where you are struggling with courage), help me remember the time that You ____________________ (name a specific situation when you felt powerless, but God was faithful).