Hitting the Nail on The Head

"To the man with only a hammer in his tool box, everything looks like a nail."

I do not remember which of my friends said that, but it is one of the coolest statements I have ever heard.

Hmmm... can't find a screw driver? Hit that thing with a hammer and it will go in. Can't find a pair of pliers? Maybe if I loosen it a bit with this hammer...

Sing with me! "If I had a hammer... I'd hammer in the morning..." - Stop! Hammer time!

I've got good friends with good hammers, some with wrenches and some with screwdrivers. My medical struggles as of late have helped me see that some times I have to avoid the guys with just hammers. One guy hammered me a while back and basically said my negative confession and the fact that I keep acknowledging the sickness and going back to the doctor may be why I haven't seen my healing. I am already healed but God is not going to show it to me until I stop saying I'm sick. Everytime I take a pill, I prove my lack of faith. It sounds a bit warped, but I run into that from time to time. Like.... when I got sick recently.

Uh oh... maybe I'm not supposed to say that I got sick. It shows a lack of faith. Ok, so how does this sound. When I got beset by a multitude of symptoms...

Nope. I was sick. The bed spun, the floor spun. The only thing not moving was the ceiling fan. Or maybe it was the only thing that was really moving.

I think up until then I had been in denial about this diagnosis from the doctor. I move a thousand miles an hour. Sickness can slow me down, but it's never stopped me. Until now. And lying there in bed, rolling over and falling to the ground... finally managing to crawl across the floor to the bathroom... and finding that the floor was moving just as much as the bed; my prayers of denial became prayers of faith. Because now I was fighting a real enemy. Any one can be cocky during the cold war. But when the missiles began to fly, you suddenly see that it is real and you only get to win or lose. There will be no draw.

Here's the deal. If I don't believe that I am sick, then how can I pray the prayer of faith?

I once heard a preacher say... "I don't say I'm sick, even when there's a manifestation of sickness in my body!" Then what's the point of the prayer of faith? What's the point of the laying on of hands? What's the point of all those healing prayer lines that you have at all those conferences where all those people donate all that money while you pray for sickeness you just told them not to confess? Don't they prove they don't believe your teaching by coming up front? Don't you show that you don't believe your own teaching by asking them to? Better to have them stay where they are, close their eyes, assume the lotus position and chant boogie woogie.

Why didn't Jesus just tell people to confess by faith that they were not really blind, lame, sick, etc.? Because the sick need a doctor. They need the healing touch of the Great Physician. And if saying you have no sin means your a liar, wouldn't saying you're not sick be similar?

Hey! I'm pretty good at swinging this hammer myself. Watch out, Thor!

I don't know all the answeres... Heck, I don't even know half the questions. But as I'm looking through this toolbox to find a way to deal with what I am struggling through, I think I'll slip past the hammer and look for a screw driver. After all, my friends are always telling me I have a screw loose.