Wednesday, January 18, 2012

Root Canals of Life

Today, I went to the dentist. For a root canal. Fun times, right?

No, waiting in the lobby for an hour and a half past appointment time was NOT cool. Getting the numbness shot? Not comfy. Having those numbing medicines wear off a tiny bit before the end of the procedure? Ouch.

But none of that matters. That's not what this blog is really about.

Just in case you're not familiar with root canals, basically the dentist removes the dead or dying nerves from the inside of the tooth and replaces it. The replacement filling actually makes the tooth a little stronger. All of this made me think. I thought about my mouth, and the dentist, and what had just happened, and God. And I smiled.

God is in the "root canal" business. We all have dead or dying parts of us because of sin. He takes all of that sin away. He cleans it out. He digs deep into our hearts and souls and scrubs every corner. And like my medicine wearing off, this cleaning out of his can be a little uncomfortable, or even painful. We, as humans don't always want to be cleaned out. Or we give God parts of out lives, but we always keep that one special area all to ourselves. We think we can do it on our own, but we can't. We end up failing, flailing, and falling. But He picks us right back up. Like my root canal will make my tooth stronger and better, God uses the pain and discomfort in our lives to grow us. He uses every trial for his glory- death, injuries, sickness, job loss, divorce, broken relationships, everything. Those things, in themselves, tend to make us weak. We can't handle any of that on our own. But nothing is impossible for God! Not one thing. He takes our weaknesses and proves his strength. He makes us strong. Our character develops, and our wisdom grows. And we are better off in the long run.


Also, like I had to wait for what seemed like days in the lobby, we often have to wait in God. His timing is so far beyond ours and we can't comprehend it. But his timing is also so much better than ours. We may want to rush him and figure out what his plans are right NOW. But he just tells us to wait. "Wait for the Lord;be strong and courageous.Wait for the Lord." (Psalm 27:14 HCSB)
There are reasons for everything He does. But we get too selfish to care and we get too caught up in not knowing exactly what God is doing. we ask repeatedly "What's the next step Lord?! I need to know where you are taking me, and I need to know how to get there and when I'll get there. But mostly I just need to know where I'm going and what to do next." His response a lot of times is "Wait, my beloved. Wait and see. That is the next step for you right now."

Root canals are not cool. Trials are even less cool. Waiting takes too long. But God is the master dentist. [[Great Physician.Dentist=doctor.]] Let Him do his job.

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