We’ve got pills for everything! There’s a pill for every sickness, a dose of something or another for every discomfort. Given what stocks the shelves in your local pharmacy, there’s practically no reason to be sick today, no reason to be uncomfortable. Just to go the pharmacy, get what you need, and in no time you’ll be right as rain. And that’s just what we do. The minute we feel a sickness coming on, we’re off to the pharmacy for Vitamin C, Zinc, Tylenol, Ibuprofen, &c. No time to waste; no time to be sick; we can’t afford to be down. I’ve often wondered why we don’t treat soul-sickness the same way.Â
Whenever our body is sick, we look every which way without delay for a remedy. Why don’t we have the same anxiety for our souls? We sense the plague of a cold heart in our devotions, but rather than cry out to God and search His Word for a remedy, we’re content that it should be so. We sense the plague of distracting thoughts in our prayers, but rather than take every thought captive, we follow our minds wherever they lead and offer up aimless and pointless prayers to God. We sense the lack of desire in our hearts to obey God’s Word and rather than mortify the sin we either obey out of formality (to be seen of men) or drop the command altogether and follow our heart.
Why are we so content to live with sick souls but not sick bodies? It’s partly because we don’t value the spiritual work and wages of a healthy soul as much as we do the physical work and wages of a healthy body. A sick body can’t work, which means it can’t earn money, which means it’ll lose the enjoyment of its many pleasures. To lose a day of work is to lose the means of providing for and entertaining the body. But when a soul is sick with sin, it can’t enjoy communion with God, it loses the comforts of God, and it suffers many defeats in the battle with temptation. To lose a day of spiritual work is to lose a day of spiritual profit. Why is it that we’d rather forfeit time with God than time on the clock? Why, if we have to be sick, would we rather be sick on Sunday than on Monday–at least we won’t lose a day’s pay.
In his third letter (v. 2), John prayed for his readers’ bodies to prosper as their souls prosper–that they would be as healthy in body as they are in soul. How many of us would cringe if someone prayed that for us!? How many of us would be in the hospital–or in a coma, if that prayer were answered?
The problem lies here: we don’t feel the plague of a sick soul as much as we feel the plague of a sick body. That’s partly because we’re so physical, we’re naturally sensual (driven by our five senses). The remedy, then, lies here: growing in our spiritual sensitivity. There is no sickness so bad as soul-sickness! So we need to grow to value spiritual health more than physical health, we need to learn to be more spiritual than sensual, more driven by a thirst and hunger for God and His comforts than by a thirst and hunger for physical things. David said God’s Word was sweeter to him than honey from the comb. Not because God’s Word can satisfy the pangs of a hungry stomach, but because the spiritual satisfaction he received from communion with God through His Word was more delightful to him than the physical satisfaction he received from eating.
May God increase our desire for spiritual health. May He cause us to value Him and likeness to Him more than all the many wonderful comforts of our physical lives. May He grant us a greater sensitivity to our spiritual condition and a greater discomfort with its sicknesses. He has given us an infallible Physician in His Son, who can and will heal us of all our spiritual diseases and sicknesses. Let us be more anxious to get our souls healthy than our bodies and more anxious for a day in His presence than a day on the clock.
If you had to choose between a day at work and a day in His house, between a sick body and a sick soul, which would you chose? Your honest-to-God answer will tell you if your soul is sick. And if you find that it is, then drop everything and go to the Great Physician! Let Him heal you and then send you back to work, so that you may be as healthy in body as He’ll make you in soul.
