The Doctor is IN

A few years ago one of my good friends came down with an awful cold/flu so bad that caused her to behave rather strangely. On one of her worst days, her temperature was up, but the temperature outside was down near freezing. Being a young mother with 2 little ones, and a self-employed husband who was tinkering with his dump truck outside, she tried to carry on as normal as possible.

 

The house had a free-standing fireplace that was their main source of heat. When the husband came in for a sandwich, he remarked that the fire was getting low, and made a move to put wood in. She interrupted him, saying she would do it, for him to go ahead and eat, which he did.

 

After a while, he came back in to warm by the fire, which was almost gone out. When he opened the door and looked in, there were just a few orange coals glowing dimly. He questioned her, but she was adamant that she had put wood in just after he had left earlier. It was obvious, even to her, that no wood had been put on, yet she stuck by her statement that she had. Her husband soon had the fire up and roaring again, and all was well.

 

Later on, when the supper call was made, the husband opened the refrigerator to pour milk for the kids. There, in front of the carton, was a split log of hickory, leaving just enough room for the door to close.

 

It's been more than 20 years since this took place, but it still brings laughter every time the story is told. But, this morning, as memories of that story came across my mind, so did an analogy of the Christian life when we are spiritually sick.

 

How many of us are adamant that we have done our God-called job, and done it well, only for it to be discovered that our fire has almost gone out because we put our effort in a place where it does no good? How many of us Christians are so bound and blinded by spiritual illness that we 'misplace' the very elements of God that keep us warm and comfortable? How many of us have caught the spiritual flu, but tried to carry on as if nothing is wrong? And, lastly, when we have taken our spiritual penicillin-a dose prepared especially for us by the Great Physician-do we follow the doctor's orders to get some R&R? Rest and Repentance?