He makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads us beside still waters. He restores my soul.

from the 23rd Psalm

I hate being sick! Perhaps you feel the same way. As I write this article I am sick. I'm not sure if it's contagious, but you might want to back away from your screen a bit just to be safe.

I remember an occasion when I was about five or six. It was a beautiful summer day in Broomfield, Colorado and all of the kids in the neighborhood besides me were out playing and having the most fun that anyone had ever had in their entire lives. I knew they were having fun because the window was open and the sounds of their joy reached up to my Mom and Dad's bedroom where I was imprisoned. From the noise they were making it seemed clear that they were playing my favorite new game, frisbee volleyball.

And there I lay, confined to the makeshift hospital ward of our house having to listen to them have fun without me.

It wasn't fair and I likely told my mother just that. I really didn't feel all that bad either - just a small case of strep throat was all. It wasn't like I was going to die and it wouldn't have killed Mom to let me go out and play. But she could be a stubborn and meddlesome woman and she would not relent and that was just that. Maybe you had a Mom and if so you will understand. I really hated being sick when I was five years old. And on top of all that I probably had to go to the Dr. and get a shot of penicillin and I hated shots more than being sick. But until I was well and "we" were sure I was not contagious, I just had to remain a prisoner in our own house.

But now I am older and wiser. It's a rare, windless spring day in West Texas and I am sitting here typing on a key board instead of playing with my grandchildren who were supposed to come over and play with me today. They are two and three years of age and I know that they will be playing some favorite new game of mine while I stay inside and convalesce. I may be older and wiser now (or at least 50% of that) but I still don't like being sick. I wish I could get well quicker, but I would probably have to go to the Dr. and get a shot of penicillin (do they still have that?) and I still hate going to the doctor about as much as I do being sick. But I realize now that until I am well and sure that I am not contagious I will have to remain confined so I don't pass this along to anyone else.

As bad as being physically sick is, being spiritually sick is far worse. I know that there are people all over the world who are suffering from ailments of the soul, and it is killing them. The tragic thing about many of these people is that though they have a chronic soul-sickness they are virtually symptom free. That being the case, they feel confident in "going outside" and infecting everyone they come in contact with. But after a while they do begin to feel the effects of their spiritual illness, but they really don't know what they have and they don't know what to do about it. They are literally dying and at some point they may actually realize it, but what can they do?

That's where the Great Physician comes in. The Lord has a way of bringing us out of the fog of sickness and into the green pastures of salvation. His remedy results in our lying beside those still, healing waters. Furthermore, His cure is complete and without unpleasant side effects: It literally restores our soul!

God and Christ truly are the remedy for what ails this world, if the world would only accept it. It soothes whatever is anxious within and Their restorative powers are complete. And, just as getting to go out into green pastures with water frontage would be Heaven for anyone who had been in the gloomy confines of the sick ward of their own making, having our souls restored in such a way will result in Heaven someday. The only question is are we willing to accept the cure?