Open Wide

Trust the Lord completely, and don’t depend on your own knowledge.                 Proverbs 3:5 ERV

The stronger the prescribed medication, the greater the warning to follow the instructions carefully, not to exceed the dosage, or refrain from driving, and the list of cautions go on. However, when you buy something for the sniffles over the pharmacy counter, your relief might come with the words, “take as required”.

You feel unwell and you want to get better, so you make an appointment with your local doctor. You trust him or her to treat your symptoms correctly and prescribe the medication to make the sickness go away. The instructions clearly say, “Take after a meal”, so that’s what you do. Why? Because you trust the advice given and you want to get better.

Why then, do we get the idea that we know better than the Great Physician when it comes to the welfare of our souls? The necessary medication, tailored to our own need, might be: Read the Bible more, but we ease back. Find more time to pray, but we ignore the advice. Make sure you get to church each Sunday to worship, but we don’t always like the way they do it any more so we watch a service on TV instead. Get the picture?

The Bible as the Word of God is full of good advice about how best to be healthy believers. Our sin sick souls deserve no less, so it is important that we follow the Great Physician’s advice. After all, because God is fully qualified in this field, and we can trust Him fully! We probably heard the best advice in Sunday School when we sung the chorus, “Read your Bible, pray every day, and you’ll grow, grow, grow”. Somehow we think these children’s songs no longer apply. How wrong we are! As our earthly dad would say, “open wide and take your medicine, it’s good for you”. So too says our heavenly Father! Amen.