written February 24, 2001
“It’s a matter of life and death” – we don’t often use that phrase literally, but for customers of the company for which I work, it is one that does apply. You see, I have worked for a pharmaceutical company that sells insulin to people with diabetes – a drug that is necessary for life itself. It is an awesome responsibility to provide such life-giving sustenance to people who must take it on a daily basis without fail, or they die.
Now, there are 2 types of diabetes – type 1, in which a person’s body no longer produces any insulin at all, and type 2, in which a person’s body produces insufficient amounts of insulin for maintaining a healthy balance in the body’s metabolism. A type 2 diabetic can survive for a long time without injecting supplementary insulin, though the longterm effects of the resulting high blood glucose levels can be quite gruesome (including blindness, kidney failure, gangrene resulting in amputation of limbs, etc.) However, without injecting insulin, a type 1 diabetic will die within days. They have no choice in the matter – they do it, or they die.
For a newly diagnosed diabetic, this must be quite a stark reality to which to adjust – you MUST take the time and make the effort to administer your insulin every day of your life. It doesn’t matter how many children you have, what kind of hectic lifestyle you lead, how much of your day is packed with activity; it is not optional – you do it or you die.
Now, I am not diabetic, but I too have recently been “diagnosed” with a condition that is a matter of life and death. No, it is not a physical issue – but I have finally truly begun to understand that no matter what I do, no matter how “good” a person I try to be, that whatever talents, gifts and good deeds I have to offer on my own in this life – my sinful nature is so great that I will die.
We all understand this, at least to some degree, intellectually. We can all quote scripture verses that say that “nothing good lives in me”, that “our deeds are like filthy rags in the sight of God”, that “only by grace are we saved”, and so on. But my stubborn, independent streak over the years has continued to cling to the notion that there must be something that I can do on my own that will make a difference in this world, and the next. And yet, the higher and higher I stack my little boxes of good deeds and discipline to climb toward heaven, the further away I begin to realize I am – all on my own. On my own, I will die.
Up until now I have acted like a type 2 diabetic – I have recognized that my spiritual health is a bit better if and when I remember to add scripture reading, devotions and prayer to my daily routine. But I have often gone through those times in life when I get so caught up in the busyness that such spiritual things have taken a back seat to the other seemingly more urgent and immediate events of daily living. I know that my spiritual health declines somewhat when that happens, but I have rationalized that I do try to compensate as things settle down, and I return to some semblance of a routine of spiritual exercise. I may suffer a bit in the longterm, but I don’t die.
However, recently I have battled a more acute onset of symptoms of spiritual ill-health. I have suffered from a bout of chronic nightmares, some of demonic proportion, and have come to understand that these could be a result of spiritual warfare – forces seeking to wrestle me away from the palm of God’s hand. In seeking some wise Christian counselling in this battle, I have been “prescribed” a set of prayers that I am to pray each night to protect me from any evil invasion of my hours asleep. In addition, I have felt the need to be more rigorous in my study of the scriptures and in seeking God’s strength through meditation and prayer.
As I first began this nightly discipline, I found that my nightmares ceased and I began to feel a calmness that I had not felt in months. However, ever being the rebel who has needed to test the boundaries of any situation imposed upon me, there was one night that I wondered whether I really needed to do this routine of spiritual discipline every night, or whether I could allow myself to skip a night or two along the way, and so fell to sleep without the armour of a disciplined heart. Once more I awoke in the middle of the night in a terrified panic, at the hands of evil visions in my head, struggling to prevent myself from falling back into the distorted cesspool of that demonic nightlife.
As I sat awake through those dark hours of early morning in my bedroom alone, I once again opened my bible and read many comforting passages that assured me that God continues to clasp me in the palm of His hand, and will not allow me to falter; that in exchange, He only asks for my complete submission and acceptance of His grace and mercy. At first I was angry that I could not go even one night without feeling the effects of Satan’s power on my slumbering mind. But then I thought of how those diagnosed with diabetes at first resist the reality of being fully dependent on a drug that will give them life … LIFE! What a small price to pay for the gift of life!
And so that night I accepted my diagnosis as that of a sinner – completely and utterly condemned to death. And yet God’s grace now hands me the drug that will sustain my life, not just here on earth, but for eternity. I now recognize that, like the type 1 diabetic, I need to submit to this life-giving medicine, the discipline of submission to God’s unending love and mercy, every day. My life is full and busy; there are so many things I want to do and at times feel so tired; but WITHOUT IT, I WILL DIE. And so it is with joy and with thanksgiving, that I now submit and commit myself into God’s hands. It is a daily routine; it is not optional.
It is a matter of life and death.
