Jan
31
2020
Something Unseen
Posted in Salvation 6 Comments
I have had a bad cold and cough for the past week.
I always know it’s coming.
This time of year usually brings it on.
This time of year, I am forced to slow down and be still.
It is not a bad thing to slow down.
I actually plan a time of quiet in my day.
I could easily live in England, since around 2:30 every day, I have my tea time.
I have done that for years and it really helps set the tone for the rest of my day.
I need time to be still.
I need time to think.
I need time to ponder.
I need time to do nothing, at least by all appearances.
Forced stillness is different.
Forced stillness is usually because of a cold or a virus.
Forced stillness is not relaxing.
Forced stillness is necessary for healing.
Perhaps it is the busyness of the holidays that simply catches up with me each year.
Perhaps it is the schedule I keep until I am forced to slow down.
I know it is coming.
It is just a matter of when.
This time, I had to cancel a day with my youngest granddaughter.
This time, I had to cancel a dinner that I was to attend with my husband and work colleagues.
This time, I slept more than I am usually accustomed to sleeping.
This time, I knew that I simply had to be patient and rest.
Ignaz Semmelweis (1818-1865) was a Hungarian physician.
He was the Director of the Maternity Clinic at the Vienna General Hospital in Austria.
He was saddened and concerned that so many women were dying in childbirth.
He worked tirelessly to demonstrate that hand washing could drastically reduce their deaths.
Until the late 1800s, surgeons did not wash their hands between patients.
Surgeons did not scrub before surgery.
Infections were passed from one patient to another.
Doctors and medical students dissected corpses and then examined new mothers.
Semmelweis’ colleagues opposed him.
He argued for hand washing throughout his life.
He knew there was a correlation between hand washing and saving lives.
But why?
Louis Pasteur was a French biologist, microbiologist, and chemist.
He is remembered for his remarkable breakthroughs in the causes and prevention of diseases.
Pasteur discovered micro-organisms under his microscope.
Semmelweis’ sterile procedures began to make sense.
Until germs were discovered, doctors could not see what was causing all the problems.
The reasons for so much sickness and death alluded them.
Something invisible was devastating.
Something unseen was lethal.
Even with the discoveries of germs, doctors were slow to adopt sterile techniques.
Rubber gloves and gauze masks were accepted grudgingly.
There was opposition.
Germs were unseen; something unseen could not be that much of a problem.
Jerry Bridges wrote a wonderful book, Respectable Sins: Confronting the Sins We Tolerate.
Ungodliness, anxiety (frustration), discontentment, and unthankful-ness are a few on the list.
Pride, selfishness, lack of self control, impatience, anger, and judgmental-ism are others.
Envy (jealousy), sins of the tongue, and worldliness are also included.
Sin is a spiritual and moral malignancy. Left unchecked, it can spread throughout our entire inner being and contaminate every area of our lives. Even worse, it often will “metastasize” from us into the lives of other believers around us. (
Like the unseen germs in Semmelweis’ day, no one believes that something unseen is a problem.
It really isn’t that bad.
It’s just a little gossip.
It’s just a bit of anxiety.
According to Bridges, we consider these sins respectable.
They are almost expected in our culture and we look the other way.
They are nothing like murder or theft, which we know are blatantly sinful.
However, sin is sin to God.
For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. (Romans 3:23)
God is a holy God.
God cannot look on any sin.
We may dismiss our respectable sins, but they are like the unseen germs that kill.
No sin is respectable.
No sin is unseen because God sees.
No sin is without its consequences to us and to those we sin against.
Seems like we have to do some serious disinfecting of the sin in our lives.
Search me, God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting. (Psalm 139:23,24)
Only through our Lord Jesus can any of us become clean.
Jesus is the spotless Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.
Only Jesus can remove the germ of our sin because He took it upon Himself on the cross.
Jesus became dirty with our sin so that we can be clean.
Father God, do some serious washing of the unseen germs of sin in my life.
I may not even know they are there, but You know; You see.
Show me what needs to be removed so that I am clean.
Only through faith in the Lord Jesus is this even possible.
Thank you GIna:) I, too, need and welcome quiet time to just be still and do nothing but soak in quietness and enjoy gazing out our sun room windows to reflect, think or pray. It is warm and welcomed therapy for my body and soul. Praying quick healing for you and that you can move from forced stillness to your more enjoyable anticipated quiet time, accompanied with a cup of tea! And be sure to reschedule a date with your granddaughter!
Amen, Carolyn.
The date with my granddaughter is already on the calendar!
Gina
We all need serious washing of sin, especially when we don’t realize we are sinning. I pray every day for God to forgive me of any sin; I know He will. I pray you feel better soon.
Thank you, Sue.
I am so much better.
I am so grateful to God for His forgiveness.
Gina
Thanks Gina! Well aaid!
Jean,
God can teach us things in so many ways, even when we’re sick with a cold. Blessings, friend,
Gina