Back pain is not fun. I had been experiencing sharp pain in my mid-back region for about two months. Nothing traumatic brought that on – it just crept up on me.

I had been putting off doing the physical therapy exercises prescribed during previous bouts with back and neck pain. I couldn’t get up the motivation to even look through the instructions I’d saved.

Then I thought of sit-ups. For some reason, doing sit-ups sounded easier to me than just sitting down to look through my physical therapy exercises.

So I started doing sit-ups.

Within four days, my back pain dramatically decreased. It was nothing short of a breakthrough!

During a crazy week, I skipped about three days, and the pain started to come back. Alas, it was not a one-and-done fix. But 40 daily sit-ups is way better than constant back pain!

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A friend recently reminded me of Joshua 1:6-9. In those few verses, God reminded Joshua three times to be strong and courageous.

So even my little step of being strong and courageous enough to do start doing daily sit-ups has made a big impact on my life.

God was the source of strength for Joshua. Call out to Him for strength to face the battle if you can’t do it yourself.

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Paul Merrill writes here every First Friday.