The drop of Compound W at the end of
the applicator brush grew slowly bigger, bulkier, finally bulging
at the end of the applicator brush held over the finger that was so
patiently waiting underneath. One drop would cover the spot, but that
drop was taking a lifetime, it seemed, to gather its strength and
release its load of salicylic acid on the troublesome wart below. My
bad, of course. I had noticed the medicine seemed to be getting
thicker as the days went on. Apparently I was allowed to thin the
solution and shake thoroughly before application; a detail I'd
missed. I waited instead.
It seemed like I'd waited long enough
to even start the removal process, when first one and then a
second wart appeared on the affected finger. I ignored them until I
found that their presence was attracting the constant attention of
the nearby thumb, which ran itself over the bumpy skin repeatedly
throughout the course of the day. The warts had become a silent worry
I needed to dispose of. Compound W came to the rescue.
I know I am not alone. Not everybody
has warts on their skin, but we all have bumpy spots on our souls,
problem areas that need to be corrected before they demand any more
of our time and attention and hinder us from fully devoting ourselves
to the work we were put here to do. We tend to ignore those difficult
areas in our relationship with God until we realize that they are not
going to go away on their own; action of some type is required.
Perhaps it's not any one particularly
sinful action we are dealing with; none of the Ten Commandments has
been broken, we love God and (most of!) those with whom we
share the earth. Some of us are just prone to worry about things over
which we have no control or what what the future might hold. But
worry is itself a spiritual wart...an indication that our trust and
confidence in our Creator's love for us is not where it needs to be.
The numerous times the words, “do not worry”, “do not fear”,
and “do not be afraid” appear in the Bible are an indication of
how important this issue is to God, and yet they are commands we
break with astonishing regularity.
How funny that the solution for the
problem is likewise “Compound W”...multiple applications of the
Word of God. Soaking ourselves repeatedly, consistently several times
a day in what God has to say peels back the layers of wrong thinking
and justifications with which we've covered our actions until the
root of the problem can be uncovered and corrected.
I have wanted to interfere several
times in the wart removal process. Impatient to get on with my day,
I've raised the finger to meet the brush, painting the medicine on
instead of waiting for the drip. And I've tried to hurry the peeling
action of the drug by picking at the area. Instead of moving things
along I only delayed the process, as I then had to wait for the
irritated skin to heal before beginning the application process once
more.
When spiritual change doesn't happen
fast enough to suit us, we tend to take matters in our own hands, as
well. We want a quick fix, a one-time prayer, a laying-on of hands, a
single church sermon that will set us straight. And sometimes God
works in lightning-bolt fashion as He did with Saul-turned-Paul on
the Damascus road. But more often He leads us down a path of daily
application of time in His Presence, reading His Book, developing a
relationship with Him that eventually kills the sin virus working
within us, removed the dead evidence of our old lives and makes us
fresh and new once more.
“Therefore if any man
be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away;
behold, all things are become new.”
(2 Corinthians 5:17
KJV)
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