“They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to the
fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. Everyone was filled with
awe…” (Acts 2:42-43, NIV 1984).
Janet’s husband
Robert texted me yesterday evening. Janet was not doing as well as she had been
the week before. We had been treating her brain tumor with radiation and
chemotherapy. Her brain edema had been managed with fairly small doses of
dexamethasone. She had responded well and was bright and alert. For the past
three days, however, she had been less alert, spoken less and would forget even
simple and important things. I told Robert that this could be a sign of tumor
progression and we needed to repeat her MRI to evaluate.
At 5 this morning I
found another text from Janet’s husband, written the night before, “I just
discovered that I had left the dexamethasone out of her pill box for the last
three days. Aaagghh! I feel so terrible.”
Steroids are interesting drugs. Our body makes them normally
and a small amount is required to keep our bodies going. Increased doses may be
therapeutic, as in Janet’s case to reduce swelling. But with this therapeutic
effect comes an anesthesia to the body’s own steroid making machinery. If you
withdraw therapeutic steroids suddenly, you not only lose the therapeutic
effect, you also leave the body with a stunned mechanism to supply normal
steroids, thus producing horrible symptoms of fatigue and discomfort. Steroid
withdrawal may feel worse than the disease for which the therapeutic steroids
were started.
Just so with the spiritual disciplines, our “therapeutic
spiritual steroids.”
We once were light and flimsy souls upheld by a superficial
understanding of life and happiness. The legs of the table on which we stood
had very little weight to bear.
“The disposition of the natural man, my claim to my right to
myself, banks on things of which our Lord makes nothing: possessions, rights,
self realization…”
Oswald
Chambers
We have now been made solid with Christ in us and no longer
can be supported by flimsy suppositions. “My claim to my right to myself” will
no longer hold me up should I depend again on its foundation for my support. As
Christians, we now live with different aspirations and possess a different
conscience; we have known a greater beauty in life. Our lives are more
substantial than once they were.
Though Christ the Solid Rock will certainly not let us fall
from grace, our energy and joy in life are supported in a major way by the
spiritual disciplines. With our new weight of glory, should we withdraw from
the disciplines of prayer, Bible study, Christian fellowship and worship, we
may find ourselves weakened and discouraged by the world, even more than those
who still live superficial lives, supported by flimsy suppositions.
Dear Father,
Thank you for making
me solid. Let me discipline my life so that I may consistently realize the
wonder of your love.
Amen
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