The Steel Plate

I HAVE a steel plate in my right leg. It’s a large steel plate that goes from my ankle all the way up to my knee. The plate is in my leg because while I was playing football one day and intercepted a pass, I got hit with a cross body block.

My cleat did not come out of the mud so my leg snapped in half and I broke my tibia and fibula. I was taken off the football field and rushed to the hospital to find that my bone had been shattered. I had been hit and hurt badly—hurt to the point where it had broken me in two. But a doctor came along who knew how to correct the problem and went with me into the operating room.

He opened up my leg and placed inside of it a steel plate with screws, and then he reconnected bones that had been shattered. Without the doctor intervening that day, my leg would even now be crooked and I’d probably be walking with a limp because of the nature of the break. But somebody who understood the problem came in with a plate, and ever since then that plate has been holding my brokenness together.

God has given all of us the scalpel of His Word in order to identify the sin that results in broken relationships. The work of the Holy Spirit is like a steel plate that brings and holds together that which has been shattered.