Disease

                                   Disease

My Father was an incredible man.  He had an amazing drive and desire to serve his God, to the point some may have felt, it was overdone.  He was a diabetic and a researcher, so was often unconventional in his treatment and tried his own way to control the disease.  Often this meant he would end up with some kind of reaction.  The benefit of the malady was that he always had a bag of candy in the car.  However, most of my life these reactions meant cramming concentrated frozen orange juice into his system to regulate him.  Later on they created a syringe, loaded with the good stuff, that we had to inject into him.  When dad had these reactions, many opportunities erupted for angels to stay vigilant by keeping the house from burning down, watching over approaching vehicles and stalling out runaway tractors. 

One particular time Dad and Mom were in a back alley in Watertown, MN, right next to the river.  I must have gotten a text from God because somehow I tracked them down.  Now understand, Dad would either get wacky funny or angry during a reaction.  This time he was extraordinarily angry.  I kept running up to the car and he kept driving away.  My worry was he was so erratic that he may drive into the river.  I finally reached the car and turned it off and while I was wrestling the keys away, dad began swearing at me (he never swore) and punching me in the face.  As I wrestled to restrain my dad so mom could use the syringe I looked into his eyes and longed for my real father to come back.  Finally the medicine took hold...he came back.  He never really spoke to me about the event but I knew he felt awful.  Even though it wasn't who he really was it affected us both somehow.  I think it hurt the most because he felt so bad.

Sin is somewhat like this disease.  It comes over us unexpectedly and its effects somehow overtake us and drag us where we don't want to go.  It makes it seem a grand thing to take life over the cliff into the river.  Satan is really good at that and takes on the form that applies to us; a driver, a debater, a counselor, a thinker; the thing we would have considered a gift not a disease. 

Will I allow friends to restrain me so God can stab me with His Son and let the Holy Spirit drain into my life and bring back the me God wants to see?

 Psalm 43:3

Send forth your light and your truth,

let them guide me; let them

bring me to your holy mountain.

Often when I slip away from God I feel bad just as my father felt so many years ago.  But God offers hope.

Psalm 43:5

Why so downcast my soul?

Why so disturbed within me?

Put your hope in God

for I will yet praise Him

my Savior and my God.

Now these are not words from a weak willed blubbering Scandinavian.  These are words given to a powerful and mighty king who needed and received the same hope I do.