Take Your Medicine

 

As a doctor, I occasionally get frustrated when one of my patients follows up with me and says that they aren’t feeling any better, but they never took the medicine that I prescribed for them to deal with their problem.  Studies have shown that one-third to one-half of all prescriptions are either not filled or not taken as they were prescribed. Sometimes the problem is simply that the medication is too expensive but other times people don’t believe that the medicine will help them or misunderstand what it was given for or are worried about possible side effects. Some people don’t trust the doctor who prescribed the medicine.

 

We will face many problems over the course of our lives in a whole range of issues – physical, personal, marital, financial, social, and spiritual. God loves us with an infinite love that insists that He help us with our problems. We can and should come to God with our problems. If we are asking God to guide us in knowing what to do, we need to come with the attitude that we are willing to do what He tells us. In other words, we need to be willing to take the medicine He prescribes for us.

 

The Israelites came to Jeremiah (Jer. Chap 42 & 43) asking him for God’s word about whether they should stay where they were or whether they should move to Egypt. Jeremiah told them that God said that they should stay in Israel and that they would be destroyed if they moved to Egypt. The people angrily dismissed God’s word and moved to Egypt where they met the fate that God had predicted for them.

 

We can be guilty of the same attitude – I know that I have, at times in the past. We decide for ourselves what we want to do and then come to God and ask Him to bless our plan. We may need to consciously change our mindset to allow God to help us make our decisions and allow Him to lead us along a different path if need be.

 

Let God lead you in the way you should go and trust in His love and providence.  “I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go; I will counsel you and watch over you…..the Lord’s unfailing love surrounds the man who trusts in him” (Ps 32:8, 10).