Throughout the childhoods of my 7 children, we used only one pediatrician, Dr. Bernard Hankin, and during 34 years of active parenting, we visited him hundreds of times. On one of those occasions, when I was toting a feverish child, I said to him, “How do you stay well with a continual parade of sick kids coming to you?”
“When I was a young doctor,” he said, “I caught all kinds of things. But I’ve built up immunity to almost everything now, and I virtually never get sick.”
Going through sickness can build resistance to more of it. The vaccines Dr. Hankin gave our children were examples of the same principle, an intentional but small dose of the disease in exchange for not having to fight the full-blown version.
God sort of inoculates us in similar fashion. He lets us take on some of the disease of sin, hoping we’ll quickly identify it as a “sick” way to live and immediately step away from it. If we insist on experiencing sin’s “illness” in a full-blown version, he lets us have it.
Today’s youngsters are fortunate in not having to suffer through many of the childhood diseases my generation did: measles (several kinds), mumps, chicken pox, even polio for some. The generation before mine had to deal with all that, plus whooping cough, tuberculosis, diphtheria, typhoid, small pox, and killer infections. As science continues to gain knowledge of infectious diseases, the rest of us gain the benefits of fighting them more effectively.
Fighting the disease of sin, though, is a different story. It’s negative consequences don’t usually appear immediately, just as being exposed to a disease doesn’t produce symptoms for several days. But at that point, it may be too late for God’s preventive medicine. He might say, “I’m sorry you had to go this route, because doing things my way would have been like using a protective vaccine. But now you’re choosing the full-blown disease.”
Thankfully, the Lord doesn’t turn away after that. Just like a parent goes out of his or her way to soothe an ailing child, God administers reassurance and doesn’t let us wallow in our misery without offering to help us. When we finally say, “I can’t heal myself!” and recognize his way is the only way to rid ourselves from sin, he shows us the route back to good behavioral health, through Jesus. I know this from harsh experience and have gradually grown to be a devotee of his preventive measures.
Our friend and medical mentor Dr. Hankin is now in his 80’s, and though my children are too old to bring in for exams, he’s still active in his pediatric practice. His conservative approach to doctoring was something Nate and I appreciated, and his medical advice always yielded good results. Because of that, each time we left his office we were faithful to follow his orders.
If only I could always follow God’s instructions with the same faithfulness.
“Godliness with contentment is great gain.” (1 Timothy 6:6)