Decay

Half my face is numb at the moment

I've had a toothache in the evenings for the last week and I have finally decided to do something about it so I went to the dentist this morning, a few months ago the suspect tooths filling had fallen out and I hadn't got around to getting it fixed so I knew where the problem was. Once the dentist had a look I found out that the tooth that I thought was the cause of the pain wasn't and that the problem one was the next one back.

This confused me a little untill the dentist explained it: The tooth that I thought was causing the problems was missing a filling (had fallen out) but in the tooth behind it the filling had cracked but not fallen out. So this cracked filling had become a 'food trap' and have caused decay in the tooth while still looking fine when I looked in the bathroom mirror.

So the result was the dentist had to do some drilling and put fillings in both teeth thus half my face is numb.

What I got thinking about on the way home from the dentist was how we do the same thing with rubbish in our own lives. This rubbish that some people (and the bible) call 'sin' Now I personally find the word sin to be very harsh and I struggle to use it in any context. But anyway this rubbish that we know is there but we choose to deny its existance is slowly causing decay in our spirit. For some people it is easy to see and is public. But if you are like me then you will cover it up so that it all looks fine (like my tooth looked fine) but under that vaneer there is something slowly eating away at us.

This is not a good place to be, but I also know that God is like the dentist, he sees the obvious stuff (like a filling that has fallen out) but he is also able to see the not so easy stuff to see (like the next tooth back that looked fine but was actually worse) God through Jesus can bring healing to that decay he can remove it, drill it out and fill it up.

With this though there is still the consequences of the actions, for me it is that I now have some teeth that are more filling that tooth and there will be pain once the anasthetic wears off. This will be the same with the stuff God removes from our spirit that is causing decay, there will be pain, there will be sacrifice but there will also be a sense of being able to move forward a sense that it needed to be done and that you are a better person for it.

It hurts and it costs us but it is soo worth it, because our heavenly dentist knows what is best for us :-)

Just taking another step on the journey...