Down: The Unexpected Blessings of Crawling Around

I relish the floor. I sit on it, lay on it, read on it, eat on it, and crawl to the loo in the middle of the night on it. Because “non-weight bearing” means ambulating on one foot, and that means it’s quite easy to fall.

If I’m up.

But I can’t trip crawling on the ground.

I can’t fall if I’m already down.

He That Is Down Needs Fear No Fall

That line comes to mind often these days and usually when I’m crawling. It’s from a poem written by John Bunyan, in The Pilgrim’s Progress. Here is the full stanza,

“He that is down needs fear no fall, 
He that is low, no pride;
He that is humble ever shall
Have God to be his guide.”

I know John Bunyan wasn’t being literal. Get “down” was not his suggestion that I scrap my knee scooter and crutches and creep along in the dark of the night to prevent a midnight fall. Bunyan was referring to the spiritual posture of humility.

But it works both ways.

My newly splinted, post-operative foot will not take the least bit of weight. I rely on my left foot more than ever. For months, I’ve been driving with it. I hop on it like a one-legged Kanga and balance on it while I wash dishes and brush my teeth.

But since my (first) Achilles rupture this spring, I’ve heard about too many double tendon ruptures, torn knee ligaments, and nasty twisted ankles to try to hop or crutch in the middle of the night.

My knees are elephant’s and my palms are tough little paws. But that’s okay.

Because he that is down needs fear no fall.

He That Is Low, No Pride

Scripture repeatedly calls us to go low, which is to say to humble ourselves.

Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you. (James 4:10)
Humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time he may exalt you. (1 Peter 5:6)

David Mathis explains how we actually humble ourselves. It’s not so much a “pull yourselves down by your bootstraps” venture, as a response to the discomfort placed into our lives.

“For Christians, self-humbling is mainly responsive. It is not something we just up and do…Self-humbling is, in essence, gladly receiving God’s person, words, and acts when it is not easy and comfortable.”

Mathis traces how, in the two verses above, the call to be humble came after a description of humblings. In James, the church was being humbled from within—by quarrels and fights that came from pride (James 4:1–2). In 1 Peter, the humbling was coming from without—from persecution and pressure from outside (1 Peter 4:12-19). But in both cases, “humble yourselves” was the answer.

He that is down, whether from forces within or without, needs fear no fall.

Even though I’ve gotten comfortable on the ground, and prefer to sit on the floor than at the table and choose to crawl to the loo in the middle of the night, I’m still too high.

Because I don’t always receive the discomfort of my—I’ll say it out loud—my disability with gladness.

I still have pride.

Learning Badness

“What have you been learning?” my friend Jen asked me on the way to my MRI three months into my one-legged season. (This, by the way, is a thoughtful question to ask a suffering friend.)

I told her this, that, and the other, and Jen listened well.

“I saw so much of my sin when I was in that season. There was impatience and a controlling side I didn’t know I had. Are you learning to see your sin?” Jen asked, as only a soul friend can.

“I see my same old sins,” I said somewhat glibly, looking back.

But now, three months deeper, I see my sins more clearly. Mostly, I’m finding mutant forms of pride. Namely, self-pity. Which, as John Piper has written, “is the response of pride to suffering.”

When those I thought would express concern don’t, I face a self-pity test. If I sulk, that’s pride.

When, balanced on one foot, I toss a tissue and miss the trash or can’t reach high enough to water my ferns, I must choose. If I mutter, “This should be easier,” that, too, is pride.

If I mutter, “This should be easier,”
that, too, is pride.

The devil prowls around the wounded and proud. Self-pity pals with jealousy and still stalks when friends succeed where I am slow, unstable, stuck.

Learning Goodness

But even as I see more of my pride, I see something good besides.

P. B. Power was born in Ireland in 1822. He pastored in England until illness stopped him. From his 40’s until he died in 1899, he faced physical trials. Mercifully, for me, he wrote a A Book of Comfort in Sickness. In it, Power notes,

“You shall never learn anything bad about yourself without learning something correspondingly good about Christ. You are none the worse, really, for finding out that you are worse than you thought… humble yourself – the lower the better, but always with Christ before you.” (p. 48).

I am none the worse for crawling on the floor.

“You shall never learn anything bad about yourself without learning something correspondingly good about Christ.”
P. B. Power

He That Is Humble Ever Shall Have God to Be His Guide

I don’t want to be the devil’s prey. I want the Lord to lead this limping lamb in right paths to green pastures and still waters for his name’s sake.

Which means I need God to be my guide.

But God won’t lead the proud. In fact, he opposes the proud, including the self-pitying proud, but gives grace to the humble. He graces us when he guides.

The David who wrote Psalm 23 also wrote Psalm 25. “Good and upright as the Lord, therefore, he instructs sinners in the way; he guides the humble in what is right and teaches them His way” (Psalm 25:8-9). David knew that the humble were the sheep that the Good Shepherd guides.

Incidentally, the stanza below is one of two from a poem titled, “The Song of the Shepherd Boy in the Valley of Humiliation.”

“He that is down needs fear no fall, 
He that is low, no pride;
He that is humble ever shall
Have God to be his guide.”

“The Valley of Humiliation” doesn’t sound like a place we’d want to be. But as this one-legged season stretches I am increasingly wanting to rest there.

Down there.

Down, and Delightfully Free

He that is down, free, on the ground. Down—relieved of “all the silly nonsense about my own dignity.” Down—unworthy in myself of God’s love, and free of the tyranny of me.

When I am down, I am released from “I deserve”: attention, healing, meals, ease. I deserve none of these. Each is only, every, and always undeserved, grace, gift.

Speaking of gifts, that you would read this is a gift. Thank you. That God would allow me time and a clear enough mind to write, with my foot higher than my heart this afternoon is a gift.

But the greatest gift of all is to know God, and he wants us to know him.

And if the best can get better, then guess what?

“He and you are two things of such a kind that if you really get into any kind of touch with Him you will, in fact, be humble—delightedly humble, feeling the infinite relief of having for once got rid of all the silly nonsense about your own dignity which has made you restless and unhappy all your life. He is trying to make you humble in order to make this moment possible: trying to take off a lot of silly, ugly, fancy-dress in which we have all got ourselves up and are strutting about like the little idiots we are. I wish I had got a bit further with humility myself: if I had, I could probably tell you more about the relief, the comfort, of taking the fancy-dress off—getting rid of the false self, with all its ‘Look at me’ and ‘Aren’t I a good boy?’ and all its posing and posturing. To get even near it, even for a moment, is like a drink of cold water to a man in a desert.” (C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity, pp. 127-128)

Oh friend, do know this blessed relief? Are you learning, too, how simply refreshing it is to be down?