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Why is medicine bitter, and poison sweet
It’s a question I ask myself and others often. You see all around nature we see it. Plant a seed, it has to die before life springs out. Wildfires make new homes for life. Through pain is new life brought out of a mother’s womb. In death we gain life, not always the same yet still life all the same.
You might notice the lack of a question mark, even though I said it was a question. Well that is because I’m not asking today, but answering.
Humor me for a second and entertain the notion that we are created. Which means we’d have a creator. One who made everything. Call this creator what you will, but let’s say it is intelligent since it made intelligent beings (laws of knowledge preserved after-all).
If say we were a painting, there would be a style. If we were a musical symphony, we’d have a melody. If we were a sculpture, we would have an aesthetic. Why? Because we created beings can create, and what we create have these things. So can we see these types of patterns in the “chaos” around us? Of course we can.
Sugar is what our bodies live off of, but in it’s pure form it does us more harm than good. Yet what is good (ie vegetables) tend to be bitter. Sure we season them, call them “savory” but in the end we just grow accustomed to some bitter in our diet.
So why is poison sweet, and medicine bitter? Well simply to show us that what is best for us, is not always pleasent. Like a parent disciplining a child, it is painful for both. Yet if you don’t the child’s behavior gets worse not better. So too is it with us adults, we make poor keepers of ourselves don’t we?
To start with there is a lie as old as time. We tell ourselves and others it all the time. In fact, I believe it might have roots in the first lie. “That we are all good people.” Or that “if you were to take the sum of everyone alive and you would have someone who was good”. Or perhaps you like the spin “the good I do out weights the bad”.
Lies every one of them! Let me soak my white shirt in mud, then rinse it in the gutter, is it really anything other than a soaking clot of dirty laundry? What weight does any deed have? And who assigns the weights or who sets a standard in which to measure them against? If we set them ourselves, is it not like congress setting their own raises and salary? Who are we to know how our performance really is in the end with our fading memories of anything a few hours old, let alone a lifetime ago?
If you were to take the sum of everyone you know what you get? The destroyer of creation, the beast, the antichrist, whatever you want to call it. Our ultimate and final failure. Adams first sin wasn’t eating the fruit, it was choosing the “go with the flow” instead of what he was charged with.
In order to get help you have to admit you’re sick first. Then that you need help. Then to seek out that help.
Oh but we know more than our ancestors, we have more knowledge. Why then does this centuries old book say that the fruit that made us broken was one of knowledge? Because it isn’t knowledge that saves us! Knowledge of how a virus works doesn’t help your system fight it. Fluids, rest and maintaining a healthy diet give your system what it needs, not knowing how a microscopic organism hijacks cells. You’ll find this to be true almost everywhere. Knowledge of what something is, is of little help to the remedy for it.
Yet aloe vera grows in the desert, Jewelweed next to poison ivy, even aspirin in the bark of a tree. A remedy next to the affliction, call it what you want but I call it mercy.
Medicine is bitter because, to get better than you are; it is not going to be a very pleasant experience. Poison is sweet not because it’s good, but because it is the lie. Such a sweet lie too, how it keeps you from seeing a doctor. How it helps you to refuse treatment. Surely you’re not sick at all are you? You’re not a bad person, certainly not as bad as some people… But there we go again setting our own standard, our own salary.
Sin is rebellion against our creator. But you see our creator is the source of all life, certainly all life we know. To rebel, to cut ties is to sever ourselves from the source of life. How can that lead to anything but death?
Of course, this won’t convince you if you don’t believe you are created. A man born blind knows nothing of color, of light, or how it can be bright. He knows nothing of the sun but the warmth on his face, a shadow of something greater. We are all thus born blind, but knowledge by itself does not teach us to see, we see simply by opening our eyes and believing what they show us…
And yet we are a blind people still… Lord open our eyes, let us see. We cannot lead ourselves out of this darkness, for you are our source of light, life, truth, knowledge, forgiveness, and most of all Love.
Answering the Call…
To those who need to hear this, even if that is only my future self when I stumble.
The world is at war with God, with christians, with truth. It always has been, and it will continue to be until the end. Was it not a lie which lead Adam and Eve astray in the story of the fall of man? Falsehood is the opposite of truth, which is why to lie is a sin. God is truth, so when you tell lies you are rebelling against truth, against God.
We are to “Stand therefore, having fastened on the belt of truth, and having put on the breastplate of righteousness, and, as shoes for your feet, having put on the readiness given by the gospel of peace.”
Ephesians 6:14-15 ESV
The truth is, everyone has a soul that will live when this life is over. God wants everyone to live with him forever, but will not force any of us to him. We may choose to live for ourselves, country, the latest trend, another person, our own sense of justice, or anything that isn’t God. When we do that we choose our own Hell. Hell is eternity without God, not because God doesn’t want us, but because we rebel and don’t want God.
That righteousness isn’t our self righteousness, but God’s righteousness. For “We have all become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous deeds are like a polluted garment. We all fade like a leaf, and our iniquities, like the wind, take us away.”
Isaiah 64:6 ESV
If you think your own actions “make you a good person” your missing the point. God inspires his followers to do good things that glorify God. It’s never about us, it’s always about God.
The Gospel of peace. I can think of no better explanation than this: “For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God.”
John 3:17-18 ESV
“In all circumstances take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming darts of the evil one;”
Ephesians 6:16 ESV
We do not blindly believe, it is not blind faith that has existed for nearly two thousand years. It is faith in the truth, a sturdy foundation. Stand firm, and do not let the flames hit you, because the flames do in fact come for those who stand up for Christ.
Do not forget the helmet if salvation. “and take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God,”
Ephesians 6:17 ESV
We must draw our swords, we must share the gospel, we must spread truth, we must shine a light into the darkness to reveal sin and to show the way to redemption. We cannot abide with good intentions that try to take credit for themselves. All good things are of God, and there is not one good thing without him. “Do not be deceived, my beloved brothers. Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change.”
James 1:16-17 ESV
We need to be bold, we need to stand for the things God stands for. We will not stand alone for our God is with us. So do not be afraid to draw your sword (the Word of God) and fight! We are besieged on all sides, even within our own churches. Rebuke falsehood, reveal truth, spread God’s love, and his word. You will see him moving, and the world move against you.
Remember each other in prayer for our path is not easy: “To that end, keep alert with all perseverance, making supplication for all the saints,”
Ephesians 6:16, 18 ESV
May we all start, today to follow Jesus’ words here:
“And calling the crowd to him with his disciples, he said to them, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel’s will save it. For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul? For what can a man give in return for his soul? For whoever is ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of him will the Son of Man also be ashamed when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels.”
Mark 8:34-38 ESV
Do not give up when it gets hard: “Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. “Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.”
Matthew 5:10-12 ESV
May God bless you and keep you. My post is done, but I am not. I cannot pretend to not care anymore. It’s time to reach out like I’ve not done in years, I must heed my own advice and answer the call… To arms! “For though we walk in the flesh, we are not waging war according to the flesh. For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh but have divine power to destroy strongholds. We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ, being ready to punish every disobedience, when your obedience is complete.”
2 Corinthians 10:3-6 ESV
Christopher J Hillger 