Illness

Jesus answered them, "It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick." - Luke 5:31

I've been fighting off a cold the last few days. In between sucking down copious amounts of water, coughing up nasty stuff, and going through boxes of tissue, I found that as much as I tried otherwise, the sickness threw me off in almost every arena of my life. I had difficulty working to my fullest potential due to fever and exhaustion. Productive concentration on ministry has been out the window. I've willfully isolated myself from most people, both because I don't want to get anyone else ill, and because talking too much aggravates my cough. I haven't had the energy to do much recreationally aside from watching TV. Finally, my spiritual focus and center on God has been thrown off because my mind just doesn't seem to be all there, most of the time.

Perhaps I'm not strong enough or disciplined enough. But, the parallels that Scripture draws between sickness and sin make more sense to me now. Sin is what hinders people from being who they can be, who they want to be, who they were created to be. Because of sin, many people take no satisfaction in their jobs because they aren't getting paid enough, or work too much, or get bored too easily. Because of sin, many people live from vacation to vacation, with fun as the primary motivator for life. Because of sin, many people never experience the fullness of life in all areas - physical, mental, spiritual, relational - that God wants us to experience.

We are all sick. However, rather than being something that isolates us from others, it is in our weakness and infirmity where we can relate to one another most closely. The lepers in the New Testament had only each other for company and could commiserate directly with one another's despair. Thank God that there is a Healer who wants to gradually restore us back to what He wanted in the first place.