Are You Sick?

Yesterday I woke up feeling cold.  Now that doesn't necessarily mean anything, since I often feel hotter and sometimes even colder than normal.  But I started thinking, "Am I getting sick?"  

My husband felt my head - nothing.  I took my temperature - nothing.  Yet I'm still thinking, "I might have that virus."  

And that's the way it is when there's a chance of illness.  My physical well-being becomes my focus, occupying my thoughts, and affecting everything I do.  Every little body twinge is a cause for concern.

About a month ago, just as we went into this stay-at-home mode, I happened across John Donne's Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions - meditations relating to sickness, death, and trusting in the Lord during trying times.  

These writings include the well-known phrase "never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee."

Donne writes these devotions as he's experiencing some type of sickness; he also relates how he does all he can to avoid getting sick.  Nothing wrong with that.  We do the same.

But Donne then compares his concern for physical health with his concern for spiritual health.  

Why is not my soul as sensible as my body?  Why hath not my soul these apprehensions...these suspicions of a sin, as well as my body of a sickness?...I fall sick of sin...and all this while have no presage, no pulse, no sense of my sickness.

Donne recognizes that he isn't on the look-out for dangers, for temptations and the sin that may harm his spiritual soul.  

And I'm convicted.  I know God's Word and His commandments.  I'm aware of my sinful heart.  And yet I don't wear a "spiritual mask" to protect myself.  I'm not careful in that regard.

Now I have two options here:

1) I can totally ignore my spiritual health and be unconcerned about my sin, which is my tendency; or...

2) I can overreact and become legalistic and obsessed with personal holiness.

Of course, neither one of them is the correct choice.

So I turn to option #3.

Jesus came into this world, died on the cross and then rose again.  Because He came, I call God my Father, and I neither ignore my spiritual health or obsess over it.  

I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.  Galatians 2:20

There's freedom and love in being a child in my Father's house.  It's okay that I'm the prodigal son, always returning, always being forgiven, always loved.

For you were called to freedom, brothers. Only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another.  For the whole law is fulfilled in one word: "You shall love your neighbor as yourself."       Galatians 5:13–14