Bacterial Infections and Infections in the Soul

Tuesday night, I was relaxing with my family getting ready to watch TV, when I got a phone call from our clinic.  I wasn't expecting to hear from them, so my first reaction when I saw the clinic's name on Caller ID was to think that they were calling to remind me of an upcoming appointment.  My next thought was that we don't have any scheduled appointments and then I realized someone live was on the line waiting to talk to me.  When I finally gained my senses, I listened as a nurse told me my daughter's blood work came back  positive for a bacterial infection.

To back up in the story, I need to tell you that for the past year and more my oldest daughter has struggled with periodic stomach pains.  We've been to the ER on a couple different occasions only to leave without answers.  We recently visited our family doctor and were given a diagnosis which we thought was the answer we've been searching for; however, she continued to have pain, which escalated to severe two weeks ago.  She continued to experience such pain off and on for the next week and a half.  As a mom, I felt helpless and overwhelmed... there was nothing I could do to take away my daughter's pain; all I could do was sit and watch her moan, cry and throw up repeatedly.

Last Sunday, out of nowhere the pain came back and she began to experience the nausea again.  This time my husband took her to Urgent Care.  Within a couple hours, the pain was gone and we were told they couldn't find anything wrong.  Back to square one.

Then came Tuesday, and the call.  I was told that my daughter had an infection that I had never heard of and that I would need to start her on antibiotics sooner rather than later.

Now that I had a name for this ailment, I immediately opened my laptop and Googled the name of this strange infection.  I wanted to know everything there was to know -- symptoms, causes, treatments, etc.

The next day as I was thinking about my daughter, it occurred to me that I don't often approach "infections" in my spiritual life with the same zeal I did with my daughter's physical infection.  When God shows me an area of my life that is diseased and preventing me from having a healthy relationship with Him, I'm often content to just go on... life as normal.  I don't readily jump to action studying, researching or scouring God's Word for the cure to my diseased spiritual life.

I think we've all been there... we sit in church on any given Sunday or perhaps in the early morning hours of the weekday with open bible on our lap, and God clearly speaks to us about an issue.  9 times out of 10, I leave the church or close my bible and simply go on with life, never really changing, never digging deep to learn all I can about my sin issue and how to eradicate it from my life.

What if we treated our infectious sin issues the same way we jumped to action when we are dealing with a physical ailment?  I've been reminded this week to treat my diseased and infected soul with the same passion and zeal I would for a physical ailment.

Let’s not pretend this is easier than it really is. If you want to live a morally pure life, here’s what you have to do: You have to blind your right eye the moment you catch it in a lustful leer. You have to choose to live one-eyed or else be dumped on a moral trash pile. And you have to chop off your right hand the moment you notice it raised threateningly. Better a bloody stump than your entire being discarded for good in the dump.  

(Matthew 5:29-30, The Message)