“Strong Enough to Take It Slow” (Think TUT)

“You’re strong enough to take it slow.” 

I’ve been chewing on those words during these occasionally drowsy, sometimes dizzy, somewhat doped-up days post surgery. They’re from “Only Every Always,” a song I’ve had on repeat.  

TUT: Time Under Tension

Even before my Achilles injuries, I did resistance training. It looked like two-minute arm hangs from a pullup bar, clamshells with resistance bands, kettlebell lifts and swings, and a teeny bit of bench press—all in the privacy of our basement. 

All of these exercises involve resistance, of my body weight when I hang, or the tension of an exercise band or a weight. But for maximum effect, they require more than simple resistance. 

Any good trainer will tell you: 

Go slow. 

Slowing our reps increases “Time Under Tension” (TUT). TUT protects joints and promotes muscle growth. In an article for Harvard Health, physical therapist Cory Goldman explains, 

“Many people don’t realize how fast they go through their exercises. TUT forces you to slow the tempo and make controlled movements, so you can keep your muscles engaged longer and stimulate muscle growth” 

As much as I love a good workout, I don’t aspire to be a physical trainer. But since I do I fashion myself a spiritual strength trainer, I’m always on the look-out for a spiritual lesson. 

With TUT, it’s not hard to find.  

For it is in times under tension that our faith “muscles” grow strong. 

Where the Magic Happens: TUT, TUT

It’s at the flashpoints when fear of a third re-rupture jerks me that I must take myself in hand. I say, “God is with me, and he is strong and good.” 

These “times under tension” are the precise moments when, if I am strong enough to take it slow—to not dwell on the past or get anxious about the future—but to live in the tension long enough to talk back to fear, that my faith grows stronger. 

Let me tell you about a TUT moment when I could feel my faith grow. 

A TUT Moment

It was the week after my re-injury, and I had made many calls to gain a consultation with ankle surgeon. My first choicewould not see me, because I’d had a recent surgery with another surgeon. After a few more calls, I had secured a slot with a highly regarded surgeon the following week. 

But the next morning as I was waited for my coffee to brew, my phone rang. 

“Mrs. Wallace, this is Tasha. I’m sorry I have to cancel your appointment with Dr. G–. I shouldn’t have scheduled you. He doesn’t see patients who’ve had surgery with another doctor within the year. I’m so sorry.” 

My heart sank down to my gimpy, booted foot. I felt like a leper.

And it is exactly right in the midst of doubt–when that devil’s arrow is so close I hear it zing—that I must choose to believe that my God will supply all my needs. That no more hurt will come to my heel,

“But that the love of God permits it, and works out from its depths, blessing and spiritual enrichment unseen, and unthought of by you.” (J. H. McConkey)

So I reassured myself that “no good thing does he withhold.” I called on my ever present Help to help me, the Rock to be my rock. I might have shed a tear or two, but then I went on my way. 

It was right there without a clue who would put my tendon back together again, but trusting God knew and would show me in his time, where the magic happened. 

I was strong enough to take it slow, strong enough to wait. 

But it took TUT.

Sent to Try You

Faith strenthens under tension, when we are strong enough to take it slow, with power to trust and wait. I think of a scene near the end of The Pilgrim’s Progress where Hopeful and Christian are so near the heavenly city. They have only to cross the raging river. 

“Christian began to sink, and crying out to his good friend Hopeful, he said, ‘I sink in deep waters; the billows go over my head; all his waves go over me. Selah.’

Then said the other, ‘Be of good cheer, my brother: I feel the bottom, and it is good.’” 

But the waves roll and between gasps, Hopeful assures a doubting Christian,

“These troubles and distresses that you go through in these waters are no sign that God hath forsaken you; but are sent to try you, whether you will call to mind that which heretofore you have received of his goodness, and live upon him in your distresses.” 

That is it, friends. Christian and Hopeful were a stone’s throw from the heavenly city. And these trials—my Achilles rupture, then re-rupture and the short, tight tendon that will need to stretch but not snap before I can ever walk again, and your time under tension—are sent to test us, whether we will remember his previous “goodness, and live upon him in [our] distresses.” 

When I’m strong enough to take it slow—to hold the burden of my casted Barbie-foot and short, tight tendon with its weeks of non weight bearing, then months of rehab to slowly stretch this troublesome tendon so I can walk again, to hold that weight right there and remind myself that even in this, God is good and working good—that is where faith becomes the victory. 

Victory comes when we take it slow. 

How to Snatch Victory from the Jaws of Defeat

At the split second I take that despairing thought in hand and deliberately fix my mind on the goodness of God. I snatch victory from the jaws of defeat. 

“Sometimes a person can, if he will, actually snatch victory from the very jaws of defeat, if he will resolutely put his faith up at just the right moment.”

Streams In The Desert, June 8

There are so many opportunities to snatch this sort of victory, because the enemy is relentless. He sends zingers that my (doctor-prescribed) Gabapentin can’t touch. When I get nostalgic about summer trips and fall hikes I cannot take, I must defy myself and hope in the God “no good will he withhold.” 

Strong enough to snatch victory. 

Faith Over Fear

Life is a lot of small moments stacked on top of each other. We call a day “good” when there happy moments are stacked in, a few victory moments where faith triumphed over sinful fear. 

Good days and soul strength come at moments when the burden feels heavy. I love how Dane Ortlund expressed this,

“When that moment comes, sent by the hand of a tender Father, will we believe what we have confessed about God to be true,or will we suspect him of deserting us? The two lines of a professed-belief and heart-belief, to this point parallel, are suddenly forced either to overlap completely or to move further apart. We cannot go on as before. And why does this happen? Because God will not let us remain the people we would be as long as the waves reached only our waist.” 

Hopeful and Christian had to go in over their heads. There was no other way to cross the river. 

I am convinced that it is only in these in-over-our-head moments—in these strains and stretches of our faith in the God of all goodness and grace—that we can grow strong in our faith. Spiritual muscle, like bicep muscle, grows stronger when it strains against resistance. 

When we like our father Abraham, “believe against hope” and “stagger not,” we, like him, grow strong in our faith (Romans 4:20). It is in this boiling, purifying cauldron that the “tested genuineness” of our faith is achieved (1 Peter 1:7). So we “count it all joy” when we face trials of various kinds (James 1:2). 

This is where “professed-belief and heart-belief,” as Ortlund wrote, “are forced either to overlap or to move further apart.” 

Crutching or scooting or limping along, I intend my words and true belief will increasingly overlap. So help me God, I will count that alignment joy. 

So help me God, be strong enough to take this slow.  

You’re Strong Enough to Take it Slow

I do not powerlift. Even my pre-rupture, two-legged basement workouts were pretty tame. 

But I know enough about weightlifting to know that lowering a weight slowly is much harder than simply letting it drop. Directions for arm exercises with dumbbells, whether military press or a simple arm raise, add this, 

“Slowly lower the weights back to the starting position.”

It takes strength to go slow. I know that from situps and leg lifts and the handful of pullups I can muster. Slower is harder. Slower means stronger. Slow produces endurance produces strength. 

Our God is strong enough to take it slow. 

By his grace, his children are made so. 

“By your endurance you will gain your lives.”

—Luke 21:19