From September 12, 2003

While I write this, my grandson is lying in another office, near mine, sick. I picked him up at school a little while ago and he was hot with fever. On the way to the truck he had to stop and. . .well, I felt sorry for him. I know how it is to be sick.

He can’t tell me what the problem is (he is only six), he just knows he doesn’t feel good and , unlike most of the time, he just wants to lie down and be quiet.

His circumstance caused me to start thinking about all those folks around us who are sick with sin. Most of the time they can’t tell you what is wrong. We have been surrounded by a society that tell us nothing is wrong and anything is all right, and it has made us sicker than we were before. The Truth of God’s Word has been ignored, or thrown away as it were, and we just don’t feel good because somewhere down inside our innermost being we know there is something wrong.

What we need is someone to set it right. In this case, it will probably be grandmother who will send me to look through the vast variety of medications occupying a cabinet in the bathroom, and come up with something that makes it all better. If things go as they normally do, he’ll be ready for soccer practice this afternoon.

What our friends and neighbors need is for one of us, or some of us, to break out the medicine of God’s Word and  help the apply it to the circumstances of their life. They will have the opportunity to get what is needed to resolve the problems of a sin sick soul.

Not every child has a grandmother who knows what to do when the brow is fevered and the stomach aches. Unfortunately not many people on any street have someone who knows enough, or is willing enough, to find the right stuff and get it to the right place and person.

So here’s the point. Do you know someone who is sick with sin? Do you know the healing power of God’s Word and Spirit in relationship to sin? Well, then, what are you waiting for?

(Just as true today as it was in 2003  – Christian West)