Last week a stomach virus invaded my house.  All 4 of us had it at one point during the week, and I was the last… and the worst.  I’ve never been so sick in my life.  It was the kind of sick that makes you pass out on the bathroom floor, and not because you drank too much.  It was the kind of sick that makes you truly believe you’ve contracted something the CDC should be notified of.  It was the kind of sick that makes you bargain with God.  It was both awful and spiritual at the same time.

Sometime in the early hours of Friday morning, in between praying to the Porcelain Queen and begging with the Heavenly King I had a bit of a revelation. 

We typically have 3 responses to illness. 

1. Deny It - We refuse to believe we’re sick.  We say its just a little cough when really its pneumonia.  We often take on this response when the sickness is more inconvenient than usual.  If you just won tickets to the Super Bowl, you don’t want to come down with the flu.  You’d rather be sick and do whatever you’re doing, rather than miss it altogether.  The danger here is that in your denial, you’ll fool others too.

2. Fight It - We get in the ring with the “bug” and we get all competitive.  All of a sudden we’re Dr. Quinn the Medicine Woman and we’re making up homemade rememdies and drinking awful things like Emergen-C or TheraFlu.  You failed high school chemistry but all of a sudden you think you could be a self-made pharmacist.  The sickness is nothing more than opportunity to test your intelligence and resourcefulness.  The danger here is that in reality you don’t have a clue about the practice of medicine, and you could make it worse by trying to do things on your own.

3. Embrace It: Sometimes the sickness can be a little convenient.  Maybe you’re sick because you over-worked yourself to illness, and now that you’re getting some rest you don’t mind being so sick.  Its nice to be waited on and have other people do things for you.  Sometimes we just feel so bad that we don’t believe we’ll ever get better, and our response is a little more than dramatic.  Maybe you even make the sickness last a little longer or take one more sick day… just to make sure you’re really better.  Come on - you all know what I’m talking about and you’re all guilty.  Being sick brings out others’ appreciation and concern for you - something we often don’t see enough of, so who wouldn’t want to make that last a little longer?  The danger here is that if it goes on too long, people will feel like they can’t help you… so they won’t.

So laying on the cold tile floor I opted for option 4: Get On With It.  I wasn’t going to deny it or fight it.  I certainly wasn’t going to embrace it.  I was going to do what I had to do: rest, fluids, medicine.  It was basically like a surrender with hope.  I knew it was coming.  Now here it is.  I know it will pass.  I didn’t change any appointments, I didn’t ask anyone to do my work, and I didn’t call the CDC.  I just waited patiently to get better.

Sin is much the same.  In faith it is the sickness.  So often we respond in 3 different ways.  We deny it - but that only hurts us and possible others.  We fight it - but trying to cure it on our own only makes it worse.  Or we embrace it - we give up all hope on ourselves and we declare ourselves incurable - and those who could help us most stop helping us altogether.

The only real way to respond to sin is to get on with it, much like David does in Psalm 51 after his Bathsheba incident.  Do what you have to do to get better.  Confess it.  Ask for forgiveness (from God and others).  And most importantly - move on!  Don’t deny it, don’t try to fix it yourself, and don’t sit in it.  Get on with it.

So after my littel revelation, I had a time of prayer seeking God’s forgiveness for my sins.  And then I repented to the toilet for eating those chicken nachos.  And then I passed out.