It's been there about 9 months -- an area about 4 inches long above the left ankle. Dry, scaly, itchy. I could feel it sometimes, begging me to scratch it, as I went through the day. It wasn't going away on its own. I tried different things -- Burt's Bees, hand lotion, stuff like that -- nothing helped.
I looked forward to my yearly doctor visit just so I could ask, what is that?
Monday it came, I asked -- "it's eczema." Cool, I have something with a 'z' in its name. He writes a prescription, small tubes of a cream that cost $2.73 at Wal-Mart. Cheaper than over-the-counter! -- might as well be free! I put it on as directed and in 2 days it's already better.
So now I'm thinking, I go all that time with something that needs fixed, and all along this tube of cream is waiting for me to pick it up and use it. I put it off, put it off and put it off. Suffer with it, get discouraged and resigned to it. And at every moment that simple cure is available. My own well-intentioned, sincere doctoring of myself can't fix it -- I have to go to an expert and trust him and believe him. And if I trust him and believe him I'll do what he says and apply the medicine he gives me.
If I don't go to the doctor, I don't get well.
If I go but don't believe him, I don't get well.
If I go and say I believe him but don't apply the medicine, I don't get well.
If I go the wrong doctor and get the wrong medicine, even if I sincerely believe him and apply the medicine, I don't get well.
I can't do the healing but if I go the the right doctor and believe him and apply what he gives me, then I get well. My believing doesn't make me well -- it's his treatment that does it. But if I don't believe him his treatment doesn't get applied.
From Hungry Heart #2-24:
"There are earnest Christians who are jealous for a free Gospel, with acceptance of Christ, and justification by faith alone. But after this they think everything depends on their diligence and faithfulness. While they firmly grasp the truth, 'justified by faith,' they have hardly noticed the larger truth, 'the just shall live by faith.' They have not yet understood what a perfect Savior the Lord Jesus is, and how He will each day do for the sinner just as much as He did the first day when they came to Him.
"They know not that the life of grace is always and only a life of faith, and that in the relationship to the Lord Jesus the one daily and unceasing duty of the disciple is to believe, because believing is the one channel through which Divine grace and strength can flow into the heart of man. The old nature of the believer remains evil and sinful to the last; it is only as he daily comes, all empty and helpless, to his Savior to receive of His life and strength, that he can bring forth the fruits of righteousness to the glory of God." -- Andrew Murray
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