the headache was just a symptom

NOTE:  This post is a metaphor.

It is like one day I noticed that I had a headache and I couldn't remember for how long.  It grew in pain enough that it became noticeable and bothersome.  I tried taking more naps with the thought that I might just be overtired.  I decided to drink more water in case the cause was dehydration.  When none of those ideas worked, I reached for the over-the-counter pain medicine to curb the symptoms.  Time passed and the headaches didn't fade.  I just learned to tolerate them better.  None of my methods were really helping.  Soon I started to think that there must be something else going on.  I notice my eyes are beginning to feel strained while reading and driving so I go to visit the optometrist.  Aha!  My vision is fading and I need glasses.  That must have been the cause of the headaches.  I fixed the problem.  I picked out some cute frames and went on with my life.  Funny thing is the headaches didn't go away.  I tried getting more sleep and drinking more water and taking more pills to treat the pain even though I know those things didn't work before.  I decided to go to the doctor.  The pain seemed bigger than me now.  I exhausted my efforts.  The doctor did some tests and when I stood in front of the scans as he explained them to me he pointed his finger at a growing tumor on the optic nerve in my brain.


I wasted so much time managing the symptoms that I forgot that my Father is the Great Physician.  If I had just gone to Him at the first sign of a "headache" I would have heard him tell me that I needed immediate radical surgery.  That I couldn't waste another minute.  In fact there wasn't even time to wait and hear the details of the procedure.  The only thing I needed to do was HUMBLE myself and SUBMIT to his authority so I could learn to TRUST the all-knowing, all-present, all-powerful Father that I know Him to be.


This has been my realization lately.  God has shown the spot light on the tumor in my life.  The root sin that I have ignored while trying to put band-aids on the branches that have grown out of it.  It is time for a massive surgery in my life.  And now that I have come to the Great Physician and heard his diagnosis there is no way I can go back to "sleeping more and hydrating and self-medicated".  The process of His way will be initially more painful than the headaches I was experiencing and grown used to, but the healing and restoration in the end will bring me one step closer to the Promised Land.  Who really wants to stay in the desert anyway?


Pray for us.  God is working miracles little by little over here.