Don't Look BackSample

So many times when I hear myself telling my girls to sit up straight, or to walk with their shoulders back, I sometimes feel like I can hear my mother’s voice, because I sound just like she did. “Christina,” she would say, “mind your posture. Don’t slouch like that. Sit up.” Of course, she was speaking about my physical posture, and when she would remind me, I would get so frustrated, because I preferred to slouch. Even when she explained why I needed to sit up straight, I found it so much more comfortable not to. I imagine we all do, because giving into gravity is always easier than working against it, right? But alas, Mum was right. She knew the older I grew the more I would care, and that good habits are much easier to form when we’re young. So, like Mum, I do my best to keep my girls mindful of their posture, but I have taken it a step further.

Just as much as I’ve worked to remind our girls about their physical posture, I’ve done my best to teach them about their spiritual posture—because our spiritual posture is one more thing that affects whether we are living our lives stuck looking back or intentionally moving forward with all the plans and purposes God has for us. If we’re slouching, then by definition, we’re drooped over; we’re moving slowly or reluctantly; we’re excessively relaxing our muscles to the point we’re assuming an ungainly stooping of the head and shoulders.You could say we’re looking down instead of up; that we’ve grown passive and laid back when God wants us on the edge of what he’s doing and moving forward with him.

It’s so easy, especially after the past few years of our world changing faster than we can keep up with to stop caring as much about our posture. To start slouching, spiritually speaking. To start moving slowly or reluctantly. To forget that we’re in a spiritual battle, fighting against powers and principalities, with a mission to fulfill and purpose to outwork. To forget to put on our spiritual armor. To forget that we’re fighting the good fight of faith. To stop looking up. To stop getting up. To stop moving forward. To start growing lazy. To not want to go to church, read the Bible, pray, serve others, or put on hard pants, even. You might be laughing at such a thought, but let’s face it, we’ve worn “stay at home” clothes for a few years now. Even when we zoom, I’m not sure our bottom half looks as polished as our top half. There are so many things we took far more seriously before the pandemic changed our world, including wearing real pants. I suppose many of the things we’ve let go will never matter, but the condition of our spiritual posture will always matter.

I understand there are times when looking back is easier than looking up. That giving up is easier than getting up. That standing down is easier than standing up. Especially when we’ve been beaten down, knocked down, ridiculed, canceled, maligned, misunderstood, abandoned, or rejected; when everything seems hopeless, and we feel helpless. When we’re afraid and feel paralyzed. When we’ve grown indifferent and apathetic, though we never meant for that to happen.

Where in your life have you grown comfortable and started slouching? It’s so easy to give into the gravitational pull of ease and let slouching creep into every area of our lives, but wherever we find it, that’s where we need to change our posture; that’s where we need to rise up.

Rising up, especially rising up again, is not always easy—especially when we are tired, especially when we are winded, especially when we’ve been wounded. But the good news is that our ability to arise is not based on our strength, but his.

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This plan has been adapted from "Don't Look Back: Getting Unstuck and Moving Forward with Passion and Purpose" by Christine Caine. Copyright 2023 by Christine Caine. Reprinted with permission of Thomas Nelson Publishing. All rights reserved. For more, visit ChristineCaine.com/Book