The Dentist

My son, Elijah, broke his only two adult teeth yesterday. As we came home that afternoon, the kids went up on the deck and asked for the keys to get in the house. Since I had my hands full with groceries and other stuff that accumulates in your vehicle, I threw the keys up on the deck for them to catch. They raced to see who could catch them first and, well... Elijah's teeth won. One is just chipped along the top, but the other has a wedge missing right down to the gum in the back. At least he suffers well.

After giving him a little while to calm down, he tried eating some Jello to see if it would hurt. Since that was fine, I gave him something warm to drink to see if temperature would bother the tooth. Luckily, no pain there either. I began hoping we had dodged the bullet and could wait a little while till his dentist got back from vacation. About an hour later I made them a sandwich to eat on the way to church. That did it. He yelled and smacked his hand over his mouth in surprise. I know that feeling- a nerve had been touched.

So, guess who's at the dentist this morning with his dad? Praise God for brothers in Christ who go to the same church and just happen to be dentists... I won't worry about Elijah at all.

I know what you are thinking: So what does this have to do with living a Christ centered life? What lesson could I possibly learn from a broken tooth? Well, I'm glad you asked...

It started me thinking about how random an act his teeth breaking with a set of keys was. Seriously, those teeth had been hit many times before by brothers, walls, and balls. Another thing is we even tested to see if a nerve had been hit - Not throughly, but cautiously - and just as we started to feel free and clear, Ouch!

This is what it reminded me of:

There are times in our walk on this earth where Christians, who are clearly un-perfected as of yet, will be hit out of the blue with a sin that we thought we, or those around us, had resisted with no problem over and over with before. That's just Satan's way. He will chip and chip away will he gets a break. I'm not talking about a little slip up either. Other times it involves a huge "crazy, random happenstance" that may not even be the result of sin, but produces in us a doubt of God's sovereignty or love for us.
Any way it comes, we are left broken with nerves exposed.

Often we test the waters of our new pain with the little hurdles of life. We may even pass them with flying colors, but when life's big sandwich comes along...  The sin temptation, the unexpected happenstance #2, the inability to ignore the pain any longer... we need to go to The Dentist.

I guess what I'm trying to say is this: When you break your "teeth" in life, don't try to fix it on your own or say it's not really that bad. Just go to The Dentist immediately. He's the one who made them anyway.