medicine is evil, thus sayeth the Lord

Hi everyone,

I feel much better this morning. Thanks to everyone for the prayers -- they have been powerful and effective.

I went to the Dr. and got a prescription, which has led me to this week's inspirational thought. Since I haven't been able to share my thoughts with you in a while, this one is kind of long, but I think maybe it's worth your time...

Jesus' response to Satan's first temptation has recently got me thinking a lot. Jesus is hungry at the end of 40 days of not eating - as if we wouldn't know he would be, the bible tells us "at the end of them, he was hungry." Satan suggests that he turn rocks into bread and eat them. Jesus answered Satan, but I think he was preaching to me at the same time: “It is written: ‘Man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.’” Bread, for me, is no big deal. I am not empty of bread. So, I think to me, to Landon, Jesus is saying, “You do not live on companionship, or acceptance, or respect, or financial security, or anything else you strive for. You live on every word that comes from the mouth of God.”

The words of God, then, are my bread, my nourishment.

Those other things are sort of like medicine. Whatever is wrong with people today, whatever physical or social or emotional sickness a person might have, there is a medicine for it. I know there is not a cure for everything. I know Aids and blindness, so far, have no known cures, but there are medicines that doctors prescribe for anything wrong with a person.

Now, there are problems with medicines, but we call them side effects. In other words, if somebody is taking a medicine, she has reached a point of such discomfort that she is willing to take on other discomforts to get this one dealt with. To her, those other discomforts are nothing more than side effects – simple discomforts that will not add up to the present giant discomfort to be done away with or minimized. All medicines have different side effects – we hear them on commercials and read them in magazines – some seemingly insignificant and others that make me think, “Wow, somebody’s cold sores must really be destroying his life if he’s willing to take on that!”

I noticed early in life that there seems to be one common thread here. I mean, all the different medicines have a unique set of side effects, like fingerprints for people, and yet there is one side effect that seems universal to them all. I did not even have to be old enough to read it in magazines, or pay attention to it on commercials, or even know what the word meant. I figured out long ago that when I take medicine, this thing happens to me, and then I got older and the commercials and magazine ads confirmed it. Doctors have figured out how to do powerful things to make us better and more comfortable, but they apparently have not found a way to do much of anything for us without, in turn, giving us diarrhea.

I don’t mean to be tasteless here, but I do think it makes a powerful point because it is such an unpleasant topic. You can get rid of colds, corns, depression, and acne, but in so doing you will receive diarrhea. And diarrhea empties you. After diarrhea, you are emptier than when you started. You are formless and empty on the inside.

Sins are very much like medicine as we strive for things other than God, our true nourishment: they provide momentary, nonpermanent comfort, and in turn, leave you completely formless and empty on the inside. They give you diarrhea.

Rich Lederer wrote a book in the late ‘80s called Crazy English. In it he tells a story of a foreign couple who had a newborn daughter, their first child. They had, by this time, had some exposure to the English language. They decided to name the girl the most beautiful English word they had heard: Diarrhea.

That’s hilarious – until we realize that it’s all too familiar.

Actually, diarrhea is a pretty sounding word.

That is Satan’s appeal.

There comes a time when that bread from a rock sounds pretty good. There comes a moment when looking at a picture of a naked person, or drinking one’s cares away, or sleeping all day to avoid a bleak life sounds very appealing. More appealing, even, than God’s voice. So we replace our voids with medicine, and we get diarrhea. Then – and we’ve all experienced this – we know that the essence of Hell is life not spoken and sustained by God, life not formed and filled by God.

My prayer for you all is that you stay away from Satan's medicine. I pray that you will live a life inside of God's spoken word.

I love you all. Thanks for reading.

Landon