You may need one...NOW
It’s an interesting place. Shortly after you get there, they tell you to take off your clothes, they give you something more “appropriate” to wear and show you to a private room where they ask you to lay down on the bed and wait. Sometimes there is music and sometimes there is not. The bed is just ok but not so comfortable. Shortly after, someone walks in, looks at you and smiles as they take a quick glance at your body. You manage to smile as you wonder what will happen to your body.
Welcome to a checkup at the Doctor’s Office.
This is NOT a medical post, it is NOT a post about your body or a rant about a Doctor’s visit. This is about something deeper and if you have the skin for it, read on.
The Doctor smiles at you to put you at ease because on that day, he/she is going to be evaluating the condition of your body. He she will be sticking things in your mouth, ear and every other hole in your body. The Dr. will ask you to “open your mouth and say Aaahhhhhhh”, and he/she will probably ask lots of questions about your diet, exercise, stress level and other critical areas that affect your overall health.
The Doctor will (at the minimum) test for at least 4 core areas. 4 Vital signs.
Temperature. Pulse/Heart rate. Blood Pressure. Respiratory Rate.
The interesting thing though, is that the Dr. is not really relying on what you SAY as much as he/she will rely on the RESULTS of the test she puts your body through. He/she will stick a thermometer in/on you, and THAT is the final say on what your temperature actually is.
No matter what you say about how great you feel about your heart and its blood pumping ability, the Dr. will still only rely on the result of the sphygmomanometer. Not what you SAY...and same goes for all vitals.
The Dr. needs to verify if what you say you FEEL is actually how you ARE.You see, sometimes we need that….we need a check-up and we need the Dr. to tell us like it is. We need those Dr.’s tools AND the Dr.’s interpretation of optimum health is, to tell us how we are doing in our health.WHY? Because there are some predetermined conditions for optimum health.
We know that the normal human body temperature ranges 98.2°F ± a few degrees, same is true for all other vitals….there is an ideal range…and when one of these things is off, the Dr. tells us and advises us about what we ought to do to correct the anomaly in our body.
The same applies to our Spiritual lives.
For the sake of this article, there are TWO…yup…just TWO questions I will ask you to ask yourself (And this applies to you which ever level of faith you are in)
1) WHO is your Doctor when it comes to your spiritual growth?Who do you look to for your optimum spiritual health? I’m not talking about who you go to for general advice or quick questions on spiritual things. I mean who has the final say when it comes to your spiritual health. WHO determines for you if you are healthy or not? Who do you trust with your spiritual body to run tests and …who can you get naked in front of and open your spiritual mouth and say “Aaaahhhh”?This is critical because many people have the utmost care for the physical body but don’t have it for the spiritual being. Many people say they have spiritual mentors but they know deep down inside they couldn’t get TOTALLY “ spiritually naked” in front of those mentors and say “Aaaahhhh” so where else do you go….
2) WHAT are the critical areas of measurement with which you use to measure how well (or not) you are doing?In Medicine, they call them Vitals. Temperature, Heart rate, Blood pressure, etc . These are the critical things that are measured to determine if we are ok on a basic level.In society, some people measure how well they are doing by how fat their bank account is, others by how many people they positively impact. Some measure success by how many quality experiences they have, and others measure it by how much money they can give away.Spiritually though, many people don’t have a clue. They SAY how great they feel spiritually but have no Doctor to actually perform the examination to verify if what they FEEL is what they ARE.
Luckily, there is one sure, reliable, complete, and easily accessible way to measure how well we are doing spiritually.It’s The FRUIT of the SPIRIT. 9 core areas. 9
Vitals.Love.Joy.Peace.Patience.Kindness.Goodness.Faithfulness.Gentleness.Self Control (Galatians 5:22)
Once in a while, we ought to book an appointment with Dr. Holy Spirit, take off the layers we hide behind that can easily define us (Pride, our career, money, physical looks, our million twitter followers, church title, etc), put on something more appropriate (humility, appreciation, thanksgiving, praise, worship), open our spiritual mouths, say “Aaaahhhh”, and let the Holy Spirit run those tests on us to check our “vitals”.
That way, he is able to tell us what area(s) we need to do better at. What vitals need to improve and how to do it.
Why? Because sometimes (though it shouldn’t be that way), we are high on one and low on the other. Some days we are high on Kindness but low on Self Control. Some days we are high on Love but our faith makes the mustard seed look like a giant.
The good thing is that in the physical, the frequency of our trips to the Doctor is an indication of how UNHEALTHY we are. However, in the spiritual, the more we see the Doctor, the HEALTHIER we stay.
So…when was your last checkup? And who is your Doctor. If you are looking for one, let me recommend mine. Dr Holy Spirit.
He has the best bedside manners, always gives individual attention, never had a misdiagnosis, always available whenever and wherever you are, was part of the team that created you, and best of all, he is free.
Check yourself before you wreck yourself.If you like what you read, and you'd like to get notified when more thought provoking and stimulating content is published, click HERE To check my availability for speaking engagements, click HERE