“Praise the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits – who forgives all your sins and heals all your diseases.” Psalm 103:2 & 3
It’s terrible to be sick or injured, isn’t it? The fields of science and medicine continue to make great strides in both prevention and healing. We have specialists for every part of the body and doctors that use both modern medicine and more natural approaches. We only have to determine what part of our body hurts and we’ll be able to find a doctor for it. Is there pain or swelling? Or maybe you have a fever. Are you too tired to make it through the day? Or perhaps your symptoms are coughing or sneezing or some other action to try to rid your body of the illness inside. Of course, once we’ve determined what the problem is, we then need to find a way to pay for the cure because help with healing is not cheap!
What about your spiritual health? How often do we take a moment to determine the health of ourselves spiritually? The problem is that we can’t always recognize that there is something wrong. Let’s see if we can find ways to determine our spiritual health.
It’s easy to tell if we have physical pain because, well, it hurts! To determine spiritual pain, ask yourself how easily you are offended or hurt. When walking closely with our Lord, we are able to much more easily overlook offenses and realize that not only is the offensive action or words more about the other person than about ourselves, but God has already covered over that offense. He’s the One who will take care of it. He will heal you of the pain caused by that action or their words.
Sometimes, we see a part of our body is swollen and know that there must be something wrong, even if it doesn’t hurt. Spiritually, take an honest look at your ego. How swollen is it? How much are your thoughts and actions about yourself instead of others? Are you seeing yourself as better than others in any way? That’s a sure sign of spiritual sickness. God can and will heal you if you let Him. He will show you how much He loves that other individual.
Fever is a great way to know if something is wrong, whether it’s a fever throughout our whole body or only in one spot. Either way, it shows us that our body is fighting off some infection. What about your anger? Is it a “fever” that has more control over your life than you would like to admit? Do you see your anger cropping up over things that wouldn’t usually bother you? Then go running to our Father, asking Him to heal you of whatever is infecting you spiritually.
Oftentimes, when our body is fighting against an injury or infection, we’re more tired than usual since our body is using its energies for the battle. God has called us to reach out to one another. To reach out to other Christians to help and encourage them, as well as reaching out to non-Christians to show them God’s love. If we’ve reached a place where we just can’t do people anymore, we might want to check where we are with God. Is He calling us to a place away for rest? Let’s listen to that and run to Him for His restoration and recuperation.
Consistent coughing and sneezing shows us that something is wrong. Maybe allergies, or perhaps a cold or flu. Our body is trying to expel the germs or foreign matter that have invaded it. Spiritually, what’s coming out of your mouth? Is it words of kindness and love that can only come from the heart of the Father? Or are you hearing yourself spout meanness, snide remarks, nasty gossip or some other non-helpful words? Those aren’t from God. Those show that something foreign has invaded our spiritual life and we need God to clean out the infection.
Whatever symptoms you find of spiritual illness, hurry to God, our Healer. His word has promised us health in Him. The price is unbearably high and there’s no insurance that will cover it. But don’t worry because He’s already paid that price in full! It came out of His own pocket. Or rather, out of His own Son. Those are some pretty amazing benefits!