When we are sick

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Image Source: Martin Brosy

Welp, it happened...

In my last blog post, an apple a day, I mentioned that I always seem to get sick after travelling home to East London from Pietermaritzburg.

My wife, Mel, and I got to go home in December for a nice long Christmas holiday. For 2 weeks. I was as fit as a fiddle. But then it happened...

I woke up one day in immense pain with my throat on fire and my sinus's all clogged up.

In my previous post, I wrote about strengthening our spiritual immune system to prevent us from becoming spiritually sick.

But what about those times when we realize that we are already sick? It is pointless to take multivitamins to prevent ourselves from getting sick because our immune systems have already taken a hit. We now have to try to cure our sickness.

Often our first instincts are to treat the symptoms. Immediately after realizing I was sick, I decided to self-medicate, taking shots of Corenza C, Sinutab, pain-killers and the like. But all that this did was make me feel slightly better, it did not cure my illness.

Eventually, I got so sick that I had no option but to go visit the doctor. I was told that I had a throat infection and was prescribed a course of antibiotics. After a couple of days, I was finally starting to feel human again.

When we are sick, it does not always help to treat the symptoms, we have to deal with the root cause.

It is the same in our spiritual life. We can take as many preventative measures as we like, but there is a good chance that at some point in the future, we will slip up and sin again.

When we find ourselves spiritually sick, falling into sinful habits, it does not always help to try to deal with the sin itself, we often need to discover the root cause of the sin.

Often, the best course of action is to seek help. Our friends and family can help us identify the main cause of our illness, but ultimately, we need to ask God to reveal it to us and then God can help us heal the root problem that is causing all of our sinful symptoms.

"Create in me a pure heart, O God,

and renew a steadfast spirit within me."
- Psalm 51:10                  

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