When you are sick, you go to the doctor, and if she finds an infection, she writes you a prescription. Guess what the doctor expects you to do in your pain while you are waiting to get better? Take medicine. She doesn’t expect you to read about the medicine. She doesn’t expect you to talk about the medicine. She doesn’t even expect you to understand what the medicine is and how it works. Just take the medicine, and let it work. Just do what the doctor told you to do, and let the outcome present itself in time. When you or I take medicine, we wait for it to work. It is never instant.
Far too many Christians like to talk to other people about what God’s Word says we are to do in our lives. We like to think about His Word. Consider it. But far too many will actually act on it—put it into practice.
And yet, God, the Great Physician, has prescribed what we need in His Word. Whether or not we follow what He has revealed—things like love, forgiveness, trust, faith, hope and more—will determine how long it takes for us to wait. These are the things being developed within us on detours. These are the characteristics of Christ.
God never tells you everything He is going to do or what He wants you to do all at once. But, He has told you something. Whatever that is, obey it. However small, however insignificant it may seem—obey it. Do what you know to do even if you don’t know what it is doing.
You can start with the simplest of all commandments to remember—but the most difficult to live out. I say it’s simple to remember because it basically boils down to one word: love. I say it’s difficult to live out because this one word contains the essence of all the other commandments we’ve ever been given (Matt. 22:37-40; Gal. 5:14). It says:
Love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself. – Luke 10:27
