Soul Surgery

I've been making a lot of hospital calls lately. I was thinking today about doctors and the role they play. When people become really sick they expect their doctors to be able to figure out what's wrong and to give them the right medicine to make them better. Sometimes medicines are not enough and the ailing body requires surgery. At these times a surgeon has to sit down with their patient to give them the bad news--a cancer needs to be removed, or a joint needs to be replaced, or a muscle needs to be repaired. Though such words are never easy to hear and though no one wants to go into the operating room, most people gladly submit to surgery because it's needed to get better, to be able to lead a healthy life. We are thankful for our doctors at such times. We are thankful for their skill and thankful for the surgery they perform.

It occurred to me how much more we ought to be ready to submit to spiritual surgery when needed. Surely, we cannot expect to go through our spiritual lives and never be sick. At such times, we go to God and pray and ask Him to heal us. Yet, how often, when the spiritual knife is laid to our lives in order to remove this or that sin, when God does his soul surgery to give us back our spiritual health, we are reticent to submit to Him. I can only imagine with what care and tenderness an earthly doctor would operate on his dear sick child, not making any unneeded cut or inflicting any unneeded pain. How much more is this true with our gracious and loving Heavenly Father when it is necessary for Him to do soul surgery on His children.