You might remember from your last toothache that it mattered little to you that 99% of your body was pain free. Your thoughts and energies were spent trying to alleviate the throbbing that made each moment miserable. When the body sounds the alarm that something is wrong, it is foolish to pretend otherwise. The pain will hearken you back to the reality as with a toothache.
But there are other times when there is not an ache, a pain, a hint of anything wrong. But lurking in our body is something that is deadly. People with diabetes, hypertension and even cancer can feel perfectly healthy while being desperately sick. It takes someone with knowledge to probe, review the lab results, to diagnose those symptoms hidden from our view.
Spiritually it is no different. There are times when our conscience cries in protest against the wrong we have done that we immediately focus on what we did wrong. Like the toothache, the sin revealed demands our action. Witness King David’s plaintive cries in Psalm 51 after his sin with Bathsheba is revealed.
But there are other times when we have committed sin in our hearts not only successfully hidden from others but ourselves as well. With no immediate consequence we think we have gotten clean away or that maybe the danger was exaggerated. But the disease lingers until the effects of sin’s abscess becomes deadly. Outside intervention is needed. That is why we call out in prayer, we seek God through His Word, we listen to the counsel of godly teachers and friends.
I invite you to a spiritual exam. Check your pulse. Measure your breathing. Gauge what raises your blood pressure. Let the Great Physician diagnose what ails you. Spiritual health is more vital as physical health. The body eventually wastes away. A soul is forever.