Today's Devotional
May 31, 2007
Subject: The Specialist
Luke 6:17 - "And he came down with them, and stood in the plain, and the company of his disciples, and a great multitude of people out of all Judaea and Jerusalem, and from the sea coast of Tyre and Sidon, which came to hear him, and to be healed of their diseases;"
Yesterday was a huge landmark for my seven year-old as she completed 2nd grade. She not only did so with higher grades than I've ever seen in my life on anyone's report card, but even more miraculous than that was the fact that she had perfect attendance. That was truly amazing. For those who know, since her birth in 1999, we've often had to pray for her while she was in the emergency room of hospitals across the country. When she started school she missed many, many days. It was funny last year because she missed quite a few days and even though making straight A's last year, we got some computer-generated note from the school alerting us to the fact that she missed an excessive number of school days. Yeah we knew that.
At any rate, today we're quite thankful to her doctor. Last year he referred her to a respiratory specialist and we laughed when he said, "there is no reason that she should miss any school days." We thought it was normal to have at least a couple of emergency room episodes a year, because she had this acute asthmatic condition which often resulted in pneumonia and many other issues. We just didn't know the skills of this specialist.
That's the message for today. We wander through life thinking that things simply have to be how they are; that we must tolerate these "diseases." I've got to put up with my unhappy marriage or I've got to have an uncontrollable temper or I've got to have this bad relationship with my children and on and on it goes. We often resign ourselves to the way that it is instead of to the way it could/should be.
Perhaps the issue today is that we simply need to be referred to a "Specialist." We have a "Specialist" who is known for curing all diseases in this life. People come to Him by the masses to have their "diseases" healed, as the verse says. The key part of that verse is where they say, "which came to hear Him."
See a specialist doctor doesn't do us any good if we don't follow his prescription for our healing. So today, do as they did. Come to hear Him and be healed of all of your diseases. We don't just need to see a doctor, we need a "Specialist."
