ON THE VANGUARD

DOCTOR VISIT
“The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.”
John 10:10

It has been awhile since I have gone to the Emergency Room at the hospital. My last personal visit was back in 2009. More recently I went when my daughter cut her head on a dresser’s corner last year. The same is pretty much true of going to the doctor. My last visit to my health care provider for myself was back in late 2010. My son, however, visited the doctor last week when he came down with strep throat. I say all this not to share my medical history per se, but to make a point. At no time have my children or I ever gone to get medical assistance and beg the doctor to let us keep our sickness. We have never walked in to the doctor’s and said, “Doc, I got this pain in body, but I am okay to keep it.” No, that is crazy. The point of going to the doctor is to have the pain or sickness looked at, diagnosised and medically treated. So if this is true with a physical doctor, why is it different when it comes to God?
Allow me to explain further. When I walk into the doctor’s office and see a waiting room full of people, my first reaction is, so many germs floating around in here. However, this is the doctor’s office. This is where people who are sick come to get treated. The same in many ways is true of the church. The church is filled with people who love God, yes. But the church is more correctly filled with people who need help. On any given Sunday the church is filled with people who are struggling with an addiction, trauma, sickness, death, single parent struggles, self-esteem, and so much more. They come for help. The help is not in the pastor or staff, yet the help can come through the words God speaks through the pastor and staff. This is parallel to the fact that the healing of the physically sick person does not come from the doctor, but rather through the treatment of medicine and such the doctor prescribes.
How many of us, though, come to church with our sickness but yet are afraid to get treated? What do I mean? I mean simply that if the church, like the doctor’s office, is where we come to get treated, why do we leave with the same sickness? Fear. Fear prevents us from the healing we need. Fear causes us to walk in with our ailments and walk back out with them. Fear is one tool the enemy uses to steal, kill, and destroy us. Healing is available, for Jesus said that He came to give us life - abundantly. Yet we in many ways say, “Doc, I got this ailment but I am okay to live with it.” We refuse to allow our condition to be known, and treatment to be given, because of our fear.
In closing, I think back to this truth in my life. For years I walked into church with my sickness, my addiction, and instead of allowing the doctor to prescribe treatment, I would walk back out carrying my ailment. I think of this in relation to all those that Jesus healed. They wanted freedom and didn’t want to carry their sickness anymore. I think of the blind man in Luke 18:35-43. He wanted healing so bad that he cried out to Jesus when He was passing by. The people around him told him to be quiet. Instead of hushing, though, he cried out all the more. He wasn’t afraid of the on-looker’s rebukes because he wanted healing. This is how we too should be. We should make the church a place where instead of being fearful of sharing our ailments we find the freedom to seek healing. And we too should become so bold as to scream, “I don’t want this sickness anymore!”
Jesus offers healing; He is the Great Physician. Let us stop carrying our sickness into His office only to walk back out with it as well.