16 of my friends had the stomach flu last weekend. Yikes. Needless to say, it was a solo weekend staying away from humanity and working like a dog on homework.

Sickness is scary. It takes up residence in you and affects your responses. Before you know it, you could be infected.When something has invaded your body and it feels like you’re your own worst enemy, that can be a terrifying experience. When you forget what “healthy” feels like, that’s when you know something’s wrong.

Sin is like that. It resides deep within us. We can forget it’s there, until it strikes and lashes out and we realize it’s too late. We need medicine, a way to be saved from the spiritual sickness inside of us. Thankfully, there is a cure.

I attended a theology lecture tonight on Karl Barth that overwhelmed me and renewed my desire to grow in knowledge so that others can know Jesus. Looking at this controversial figure, what with his dialectical theology, interesting views on Scripture, and doubts of inerrancy, it is so easy to pick at him and dismiss his work and study as heresy. However…..there is no such thing as a perfect theologian. We are all afflicted by the disease of sin, and that will never change until we go to be with Christ in perfect heaven and rest. 

I have to admit, sitting two rows behind the guy I’m crazy about is the most ridiculous and hardest and testing-est thing to have to do. I feel like I will never be satisfied until he notices me or talks to me. I was crying out to the Lord, feeling so ashamed at my own sinful feelings that are so distracting me from other things, when I simply laid down on my bed and listened to Cody Davenport’s “Set a Fire.” Lord, I rest in you. I just said this over and over and over. 

It’s hard to be human. It’s hard to be staving off sinful lusts and temptations. It’s hard to rectify our desires with the mind of Christ and ask the Lord to forgive us for our subconscious. It’s so so hard to willfully turn away from distractions and pleasures and sins and face the Lord, all that he is. My own sin prevents me from being satisfied in him. I am so distracted by myself that I can’t agree with the line, “There’s no place I’d rather be/than here in your love.” Trust me, in my sin, I KNOW there are a lot of “places” my flesh would rather be right now. And yet…..I must cling to the truth that lies deep, buried somewhere beneath the angst and the want and the dissatisfaction. I know I am no longer sick, but can be satisfied. However, I must seek the Lord and remind myself of these antidotes to the sinful lies I find myself trapped in believing. 

And we all must seek with our afflicted, sinful eyes the precious flow of blood  that is the ultimate Source of healing, cleansing, satisfaction.