Have you ever found yourself in a troubling situation - where you felt like you had the right answer to fix things - but it turns out what you had planned wasn’t working at all? Brandi and I had a moment like this just last week. We had just flown out of town to spend some time with Brandi’s family, when Jane came down with an ear infection.
We took her to the doctor, who placed Jane on some medicine. We all were expecting that medicine to help her get better quickly. So we waited ... and waited ... and Jane didn’t improve. She was sleeping all the time and - when she was awake - she just felt miserable. We went back to the doctor, only to hear that it seemed like the medicine she was on wasn’t working and, as a result, we wouldn’t be able to fly home when we had planned. Jane needed to have the new medicine heal her up first. Our plans had to radically change because of this - but don’t worry! We all got home safe and sound in the end - and Jane is back to her normal, wonderful self.
After going through all this, I began to think about how the entire ordeal had quite a few parallels with our spiritual lives. There have been many times in my own life where I have found myself wrapped up in a situation where I end up coming down with some nasty side effects
(stress, frustration, anxiety, etc.)
. My guess is that you have as well. When it came to handling the situation, the “medicine” I thought would be the best fit for handling things would inevitably fail me. I could be as certain as I could be that whatever I turned to would get me out of my current circumstance, but the stress, anxiety, and pain were still there. Why? Because I forgot the one true antidote to the pains of life: the love of Christ.
Just as Jane had medicine that wasn’t working for her, we often can try to remedy our lives with things that will never truly work. These can be all sorts of things: isolating ourselves, falling into addiction, trying at all costs to distract ourselves from the issue itself. But, the only medicine that will work is found in Christ.
As Christians, we should know that when life wears us down, we need to turn to Christ! Yet, time and again, we can find ourselves turning away rather than towards the One who will save us. We say “Oh, I can handle this one, God,” or “I don’t need to bother God with this problem.” What we need to understand is that it is
only
through Him and His Grace that we can find that true, redemptive healing that we seek.
Isaiah 45:22 says “Turn to me and be saved, all you ends of the earth; for I am God, and there is no other.” It was true when it was written and it is true now. Let us not try to rely upon the "medicines" that will never heal us, the ones that do not work for the pains of life. Instead, let us turn to the great, almighty Healer who loves us more than we could ever know.
“Heal me, Lord, and I will be healed;
save me and I will be saved, for you are the one I praise.”
-Jeremiah 17:14
Turning to the Great Healer,
Pastor Andrew
