Life Abundantly

A few days ago my children and I were sitting in the living room reviewing some school work. It had been a long, rough day. The kids were fighting amongst themselves, and, being sulky and snappish towards me. Truth be told, I wasn’t responding the best, either. We were in the middle of a Bible verse when my son responded with a particularly sullen remark to my correction. I stopped. We could not continue in this vein. It wasn’t making our relationships with each other any better and it was surely not pleasing to God.


Calling my son and daughter to sit next to me, I began to talk to them about the harm bad attitudes and responses cause to our spirit. It was during this talk that I felt God give me a little nudge of inspiration; and, of course, as is often the case, by the end of our conversation I felt I had been ministered to as much as either of my children had been; perhaps, more so.


Our conversation went something like this:


Our spiritual person and our physical bodies have a lot in common. They can both be hurt and wounded. Our body may be wounded by someone or something. Usually our spirit is hurt by someone; sharp words and bad attitudes are like little knives attacking and wounding us. How we take care of our wounds determines how healthy we are both physically and spiritually.


If I get a cut on my arm, I can go to the medicine cabinet, get antibiotic ointment and a bandage, clean the wound, put salve on it and a band-aid, and move on. If I keep the cut clean and well cared for it will probably heal well and I will be able to move on with my life and will possibly one day even forget I had a cut.


However, let’s imagine for a minute I decide the band-aid is not something I want. I take the band-aid off and go outside into a messy, germy world and go about my business. Germs are able to get into my body from the cut. It gets infected. I could still at this point stop and take care of it properly, but the healing is delayed and may even be harder to come by than it was at first. It will also be more likely to leave a permanent scar, making it harder to forget.


Let’s say, for whatever reason, I choose not to stop and take care of the infection. Eventually, it is going to travel from the wound to my bloodstream. Now, my body is going to get sick. I will probably have to go to the doctor and get special medicine and treatment to heal what was originally something easily treated. It is even possible that if I let the infection go for too long no treatment will be possible; and, what was originally something quite small will end up killing me.


There are times when someone or something comes along with a mean spirit or wrong attitude, and my own spirit ends up feeling cut or wounded. Sometimes this is deliberate and others times it is an accident, but either way, how I respond to the wound is what matters. I can take my hurt to the Lord and allow him to cleanse, salve, and bandage my spirit. If I let Him continue to care for my wound, eventually it will heal, I will move on, and one day I may even forget there was ever a wound.


The healing of a wound takes time and care. Jesus wants to handle our hurts and offenses. We can let him, or we can decide to go it on our own into a sinful world. If we choose to turn from His care and tear off the bandage he has placed on our spirit, the “germs” of this sinful world will infect our cut and infection of the spirit sets in. Even now we could turn to God and allow him to doctor us, but sometimes we choose to roll down our spiritual sleeves and ignore that there is a cut there. A person can hide a hurt and an infection for a long time, both physically and spiritually, but eventually it will make its presence known.


The infection gets worse and eventually our entire spiritual being is in a place of compromise. Even now it is possible for the power of God to resuscitate us, but the process is long and hard, and often impossible to forget.


Eventually, if we continue in our refusal of treatment our wound will end up being fatal to our soul.



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This conversation has played itself over and over in my mind since it happened. I truly believe God gave me the analogy to communicate a great truth to both my children and to myself. We can let the hurts of this life wound us, infect us, and eventually destroy us, or, we can turn to the Great Physician and allow him to heal us. Sometimes, it takes many treatments on a daily, or even hourly, basis for the healing to occur.


We always have the choice to walk away and refuse His ministrations at any given time, but the end result, if we do, is spiritual death.


In John 10:10 (KJV) Jesus said, “The thief cometh not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy: I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.”


Let’s determine to have, not only life, but life abundantly.


May God’s blessings and peace be with you all,
Tamara