Lesson 6
(Note: A downloadable PDF copy of this lesson is available on the last page.)
THOUGHT STARTER:
Is it difficult to deal with the negative in your life?
Walk in the Spirit, and you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh.
Galatians 5:16, NKJV
My good friend, Dick Andrews, is a dentist. One day when I went to his office as a patient, I was startled to see him approach me with his hands in rubber gloves and a surgical mask covering his face.
“Are you going to operate?” I asked.
Through the mask he mumbled, “With the advent of AIDS, all dentists have adopted gloves and masks as routine protection.” Dick proceeded to see if he could find some trouble in my mouth. By the time he did some mysterious poking around, and his dental hygienist got through polishing my teeth, I walked out of there with gleaming, clean, healthy teeth. They looked for problems and it was positive that we dealt with the negative.
The physician also deals with negatives, yet he is one of the most respected people in the community. The way he helps us is to look for trouble and fix it. I experienced this in high school when I injured my knee while playing basketball. It was badly swollen and just barely fit into my pants leg. I had to keep it bent to ease the pain. I hobbled into the team physician’s office on crutches. He said, “You have a bad knee.” He didn’t even mention my good knee or the rest of my healthy body. (Is that negative?)
He said, “stretch your leg out on this table,” and ignored the fact that this caused me excruciating pain. He began to thump my knee, asking me where it hurt the most. When he found that spot, he thumped it some more to be sure. Then he smiled, “We will need to lance it. This will hurt.” Sweat poured out all over my body from the pain. Then he plunged a knife into my swollen knee. Lots of nasty stuff poured out. I had never felt such pain before! But my knee did get better.
It was positive that he dealt with the negative.
FOCUS ON THE NEGATIVE
The physician and the dentist are members of professions we hold in high esteem. Yet, their focus is on finding trouble in your body:
“You have two cavities.”
“You have an abscess in your knee.”
The comforting side of their professions is that when they find out what is wrong, they proceed to fix it. They can only help us as they deal with the negative.
Actually, much of society focuses on correcting or preventing the negative: firemen, police, auto mechanics, physicians, lawyers, dentists, laboratories, and many others. You can imagine the results if a fireman ignored a fire or a doctor only wanted to focus on my good leg. Even in the field of counseling we usually study the problems of clients; we don’t spend a lot of time studying happy, contented people. In sports, if you want to be good, you locate a coach who will study what you are doing wrong so you can eliminate that flaw in your performance. So it is with our spiritual lives. We need to deal with the negative.
The Psalmist prayed:
Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts: and see if there be any wicked way in me.
Psalm 139:23-24, KJV
In order to be healthy, spiritually speaking, we also need to look for trouble, a sinful condition in the body, so it can be fixed. The Bible says:
Walk in the Spirit, and you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh.
Galatians 5:16, NKJV