I know there are a lot of “inspirational” newsletters, websites and blogs these days, and I know mine probably doesn’t stand out in the vast mix. My goal for Soulscape is to take spiritual truths and look for ways to find them in everyday situations, maybe adding a little humor or a little, “Hey, that’s happened to me, too” into the story. Hopefully this approach is just different enough to make the underlying principle stick with you a little longer. There are times I’ll go for the laugh; other times I’ll sermon ize or preach a little, being a bit more serious. But hopefully these stories or topics will bless you and will help you just a little as you go through your own life and trials. And if I can give you a smile or a chuckle along the way, or make you think about some thing in just a little different way, then I feel it’s worth it.
It is currently Monday evening, the remnants of a Memorial Day cookout resting comfortably in my stomach. It’s bedtime, and I suddenly hear my son start coughing furiously, his liquid antibiotic (administered my his mother) apparently “going down the wrong pipe.” To make sure everything is okay, my wife has my son open his mouth so she can see inside. I hear her say, “We need to go brush your teeth, because I see some yuckies on them.” That got me to thinking about last Monday, and suddenly I had my topic for this week’s newsletter. Bear with me. I do have a point that I will get to eventually (as a preacher I’m contractu ally bound to use an excessive amount of words to express a thought best expressed in a sentence or two; but if we preachers did that, our congregations would only get about a five minute sermon each service, and what fun would that be?).
Last Monday I made my first trip to the dentist in, I’m sorry to say, far too long. I’d done my best to keep up with my oral health since our last meeting, but just recently acquiring dental insurance after quite a while without it, I wanted to take advan tage. With x-rays taken and myself reclined in the “torture recliner,” the dental hygienist goes to work with her instruments. As she uses a tool described to me as “a little jackhammer,” she tells me that it does not appear that one previously suspect area has produced a cavity as expected (a fact I’d totally forgotten about from the last appointment). I was both surprised and re lieved, trying my best to stay in the chair amidst the sounds of whirring and scraping metal against teeth.
She then begins to do a little clean-up work using, as comedian Bill Cosby put it, an “iron hook,” to get those areas somehow missed by the miraculous miniature jackhammer. I wondered to myself, “Did the jackhammer get ANYTHING? She’s certainly doing a whole lot of work.” I again gripped my cell phone in my hands, hoping that the good folks at Motorola had indeed created a trustworthy and sturdy product, not just for service but for grip-strength. Still, I knew that going to heaven from a den tist’s chair was as good a place as any. I prayed for speed from the hygienist, grace to see me through, and made sure every thing was right between me and the Lord . . . you know, just in case.
Taking her tiny mirror-on-a-stick, she says, “Huh! It looks like there may be a cavity back there. Let me get everything cleaned off around it.” SCRRRRAAPPPPEEEE! CRRRRRRRUNNNNNCCCCCHHHHHHHH! Then a spray of water and air, fol lowed by a re-examination. “Yep. The x-ray didn’t even show it. It’s on the flat side, the back side of the very back tooth. The doctor will have to stand you on your head to get that filled, but he can do it.” (Author’s note: the filling is to take place June 19th.
BE IN PRAYER!)
So, a choking five-year-old with dinner still sticking to his teeth and a personal dentist visit, and we finally arrive at the point. One pre-point, though: dental health is important, if for no other reason than you get to avoid the jackhammer of doom followed a month later by drilling and filling. Moving on to the spiritual perspective (yes, there is a spiritual perspective in all this) we find something all of us can benefit from.
The area of my teeth most susceptible to a cavity, the one area I worried about, never got the cavity, though not for a lack of trying. Instead, the cavity, a hole eaten into the tooth, showed up on the back side of the back tooth, a place I didn’t think much about, a place I just assumed was being taken care of during brushing, flossing and rinsing. That explains some of the pain I’ve experienced, but it also sets me up for a painful follow-up visit to fix the problem, the solution being a filling I’ll carry for the rest of my life, or at the very least the rest of the tooth’s life.
This is what happens to our lives and our souls when we deal with sin. Sin is a bit like sugar: it tastes good, is addictive to some folks, but can eat away at even the strongest parts of us. Sin is also a bit like those little food particles, bacteria or acids that cause cavities: it gets in places we don’t realize, and in the darkness begins to go to work wearing down the strength and leaving a big hole. The devil attacks us in places we don’t even realize are vulnerable, sometimes hitting us in expected areas just enough to keep us occupied. We work extra hard there, but aren’t aware many times that we’re weak somewhere else.
Then little by little we start to slip and stumble there, a little spiritual cavity begins to open up, but in the confusion of life and circumstances it’s covered up, but still grows over time.
Finding these areas might not be very easy. We stop for a few moments, have a little look-see around our heart, don’t notice anything amiss, and we go back to life, content we’ve done our duty. But a more thorough inspection, a little digging, and we might be surprised what we find. It might be that something just feels a little off in your life, not quite right. You don’t know what it is, but you’re determined to find out. So, you begin to pray that the Lord would show you, that He would open your eyes to see what’s wrong and what needs to be done to fix things. It’s not pleasant to admit there might be something wrong, but the only way to get better is to acknowledge it, then go to the One who can help. You see, the Great Physician’s license covers Spiritual Dentistry, too.
The Holy Spirit shows us those areas when we take time out to pray sincerely about it, we repent, and we know that the Lord will forgive us. But the healing process sometimes takes a long time and is painful. We know that in the end we’ll be “good as new,” strong once again, but scars are left, little reminders that we failed. But these scars, these “spiritual fillings,” aren’t meant to keep us hurting, but to be gentle reminders of what can happen when we don’t pay attention, when we don’t do our best, and when we take for granted that everything is okay. When we see them, we say, “Better be careful this time.” As the old saying goes, “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.”
I have personally learned from my failings, my shortcomings, and the healing is an ongoing process. Those spiritual and emotional scars inspire me to try harder today than I did yesterday. I might still make the same old mistakes because I’m still human. Chances are I will make plenty of new mistakes. But if I continue to do my very best to take care of my spiritual health, the Lord won’t have so much scraping and drilling to do when I come to Him for strength, grace and peace. And even if there were no other benefits, which there are plenty, that would most certainly be enough for me.
Now all I have to do is be as faithful with the brush, floss and rinse.
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