Dear Lighthouse,
As
you already know I have been sick this week. I don’t know how many of you
are like me, but I get mad when I’m sick. I miss feeling good and being
able to do what I want to do without feeling tired. I even get depressed if it
is an extended illness or one that keeps you isolated from your family and friends (or if I’m working Hoot-Owls while
sick, like this week!). Eventually, you are willing to try anything and take
anything to feel back to normal like you’re supposed to. Well, now that
I am feeling better I was just reflecting on how a physical sickness is very much like spiritual sickness. I think that spiritual sickness comes on slowly just like a cold.
Here’s a scenario:
One day you don’t read or pray.
No big deal right? That day becomes 2 out of 5 days that work week. When the weekend hits you are on the go and you cannot seem to work in any time with
God. You think “I’ll make it up Sunday.” Church comes and goes and then you watch football all afternoon and night and go to bed early for work. Pretty soon you are back to the next week and you’ve read maybe 2 chapters of
the Bible, if you lucky, and prayed maybe three times. One bad week leads to
a worse one.
At this point you become spiritually ill.
You know the feeling, don’t you? You miss feeling good. You start to lose the sense of acceptance that you should feel being a child of God. You find it a struggle to do the things that are good for you to do - like Bible study, praying for others,
and serving those around you. Oh, you’ve got it bad. A couple of weeks of dodging God and you begin to feel depressed.
You don’t want your family and friends to know of your condition so you avoid them or at least avoid the subject. You may skip Men’s Group or Sunday School so you can “get things right”
on your own and then you’ll run with the crowd. Sound familiar?
At some point you will hit rock bottom spiritually. Your frequency of sin has been steadily increasing - errant words at work, harsh words at home, sexual
temptations in your mind, thoughts of revenge on so and so, and, ironically, because you see failure in your own life and
are mad about it, you develop an unforgiving and callous attitude for those in need.
Once your compassion fails you wonder how God could forgive someone like you and doubt creeps in. You are now willing to try anything to get better.
Often God steps in at this point and gives you some encouragement or sends someone
to you to help out. You are so ready to feel better that you respond to Him. From the bottom you make your way back up the long hill with the help of family and
friends vowing to never get spiritually sick again. You are back on a reading
schedule and you pray daily for yourself and others. God is good. About two days later you have an exceptionally busy day and you just can’t find the time to…..
Ladies and Gentlemen, welcome the weakness of Man!! Does this sound familiar? I hope it doesn’t resemble
your life too much, but realistically I would wager you could find yourself in this story.
We seem to go from ‘wellness’ to ‘sickness’ - up and down.
Is this the victorious Christian life we are supposed to have? I think
not. Well, then, what is the cure? Ask
any doctor and I bet they would recommend a holistic approach to your health. What
I mean is that there is no single cure-all, but it is a combination of healthy habits.
Eating right, exercise, and moderation in things is healthy. You will
reduce the number of illnesses in your life if you do these things. Likewise,
spiritual sickness can be reduced by feeding on the Word, serving others, staying connected to God in prayer, and living as
part of community of believers who encourage and challenge you daily - or at least weekly.
My question to you is this: Are you living a healthy
lifestyle? Are you spiritually sick or healthy?
Whether you are up or down right now, I’ve got good news for you - God cares.
God cares what you are going through. God cares about your health - physically,
emotionally, and spiritually. Why do we wait until we are in trouble to pray
and befriend Him? Don’t wait this week.
Get connected to God in prayer and with His people.
The scenario above doesn’t have to keep cycling through your life. A part of spiritual maturity is to even out your life and even make it into a steady
upward trend that draws you closer to God. This is the goal. But don’t despair if you are struggling. Even the apostle
Paul struggled with his dual nature. Check out Romans 7:15 “I do not
understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do.” Sounds familiar. God honors the struggle
you make to live a sinless life to glorify Him. Don’t give up. Get healthy and stay healthy. I John 5:5 asks the question,
“Who is it that overcomes the world?” Then John answers: “Only he who believes that Jesus is the Son of God!” and 5:4 says, “This is the victory that has overcome the world…” You can’t overcome your sin alone - God will do it for you.
He has cleansed you by His Son and, if you will allow it, He will sustain you by His Spirit. Open yourself up to Him and let Him in. Like Jude writes in
verse 24, “To Him who is able to keep you from falling and to present you before His glorious presence without fault
and with great joy --be glory…through Jesus…forevermore!“ That’s
the goal everyone, to walk with God and allow Him to work in your life and keep you from falling. All you need is to treat yourself right to stay health and to seek, if I may quote the Beatles, “a
little help from your friends”. Here’s the punch:
Today is October 1st - a new month.
In September we all challenged each other and kept each other accountable for reading the book of Acts. I have heard a lot of positive feedback. It amazed me how
many conversations I had about the book. I successfully read the whole book on
schedule thanks to Craig and Paul keeping me on it. I hope you stepped up to
the challenge as well. So what about this month?
Should we take it off and go Bible-less for October? After all there is
a real good ‘pagan’ holiday this month! (Just kidding.) No, I think not. Instead, I’m prescribing a new Book
of the Month to challenge us all and keep us spiritually healthy. I meant to
get this started earlier than this, but I got sick…. Anyway, how about
we try reading through GALATIANS and EPHESIANS for the month of OCTOBER. You
can start today. Call your reading partner this week and see if he or she
is on board for another book of the Bible!
Good luck and healthy eating!
