Sick

I was sick a couple of weeks ago with a headache and a sore throat. Even when I'm sick, I'm not one to just lay up in the bed and do nothing. I tend to try to go ahead and work or do whatever and just push through it (not because I'm any kind of a trooper or anything, it's just that laying up in the bed is incredibly boring). Anyway, I was trying to do some work with the headache - and it just wasn't happening. I couldn't think straight. I was able to do some simple stuff, but anything that took some intelligent thinking I had to put off for another day.

It just so happened that at the time I was doing some research into other religions and what they believe for a class that I'm teaching. There is so much information out there on the Internet, but it takes a lot of compiling and organizing to get it into a presentable and understandable format. Anyway, let's just say that when your head and throat hurt and your head is all cloudy, compiling and organizing facts into a understandable format doesn't seem to work to well.

One of the things that has really astounded me about these other religions is their ability to believe things that are so far-fetched. Now I realize that I believe things that some would consider far-fetched (e.g. the Virgin Birth), but I believe them because the Bible tells me they are so. But they believe things that are far-fetched and have absolutely no scripture to back them up. So I ask myself, 'How can they be so deceived? How can they not understand the truth when it is right in front of them?" Even as I ask that question I realize it is not limited to other religions, but is true of all unbelievers.

But it's like me being sick. Everything I needed was right in front of me - but I just couldn't put my head around it. The knowledge was there but I couldn't compile it into an understandable format. It was like trying to see through a fog - you know that something is there but you just can't quite see it clearly.

That's what it's like being an unbeliever. The truth can be right in front of you, so close that it is staring you in the face - but you just can't quite understand it. Your mind can't compile the Scriptures into something understandable. The reason? You are spiritually sick - in fact, you are so spiritually sick that you are dead. You are trying to understand spiritual things with a natural mind - and that will never work.

For to be carnally minded is death, but to be spiritually minded is life and peace. Because the carnal mind is enmity against God; for it is not subject to the law of God, nor indeed can be. - Romans 8:6-7

I'm not sure if I am supposed to learn a lesson from this or not. I just know that for one brief moment I got an understanding of how difficult it may be for someone to come to the Truth. For one moment I realized that without the Holy Spirit drawing us and illuminating the truth for us - we would be 'ever learning but never able to come to the knowledge of the truth'.