SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 3/23/2021 10:25 AM
My Worship Time Focus: PT-2 “The Wretched Man: A Leper”
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Matthew
8:1-4
Message of the verses: “1 When Jesus came
down from the mountain, large crowds followed Him. 2 And a leper came to Him
and bowed down before Him, and said, "Lord, if You are willing, You can
make me clean." 3 Jesus stretched out His hand and touched him, saying, "I
am willing; be cleansed." And immediately his leprosy was cleansed. 4 And
Jesus *said to him, "See that you tell no one; but go, show yourself to
the priest and present the offering that Moses commanded, as a testimony to
them.’”
I
mentioned in our last SD that I did not really want to talk about all of the
physical things that lepers had to deal with, but then I guess I had some
second thoughts and decided to post two quotations about the physical problems
of lepers. I promise you that we will
spend more time in looking at the spiritual things about lepers. At any rate the quotation today comes from
Dr. Paul Brand, a world-renowned expert of the treatment of Hansen’s disease,
he writes:
“Hansen’s disease (HD) is
cruel, but not at all the way other diseases are. It primarily acts as an anesthetic, numbing
the pain cells of hands, feet, nose, ears, and eyes. Not so bad, really, one might think. Most diseases are feared because of their
pain—what makes a painless disease so horrible?
“Hansen’s disease’s numbing quality is precisely the
reason such fabled destruction and decay of tissue occurs. For thousands of years people thought HD
caused the ulcers on hands and feet and face which eventually led to rotting
flesh and los of limbs. Mainly through
Dr. Brands research, it has been established that in 99 percent of the cases,
HD only numbs the extremities. The
destruction follows solely because the warning system of pain is gone.
How does the decay happen? In villages of Africa and Asia, a person with
HD has been known to reach directly into a charcoal fire to retrieve a dropped
potato. Nothing in his body told him not
to. Patients at Brand’s hospital in India would work all day gripping a shovel
with a protruding nail, or extinguish a burning wick with their bare hands, or walk
on splintered glass. Watching them,
Brand began formulating his radical theory that HD was chiefly anesthetic, and
only indirectly a destroyer.
On one occasion, he tried to open the door of a little
storeroom, but a rusty padlock would not yield.
A patient—an undersized, malnourished ten-year old—approached him
smiling.
‘Let me try, sahib, doctor,’ he offered and reached for
the key. With a quick jerk of his hand
he turned the key in the lock.
Brand was dumfounded.
How could this weak youngster out-exert him? His eys caught a telltale clue. Was that a drop of blood on the floor?
Upon examining the boy’s fingers, Brand discovered the
act of turning the key had gashed a finger open to the bone; skin, fat, and
joint were all exposed. Yet the boy was
completely unaware of it! To him, the
sensation of cutting his finger to the bone was no different from picking up a
stone or turning a coin in his pocket.
The daily routines of life ground away at the HD patient’s
hands and feet, but no warning system alerted him. If an ankle turned, tearing tendon and
muscle, he would adjust and walk crooked.
If a rat chewed off a finger in the night, he would not discover it
missing until the next morning…
…Stanley Stein (author of Alone No Longer) went blind because of a cruel quirk of HD. Each morning he would wash his face with a
hot washcloth. But neither his hand nor
his face was sensitive enough to temperature to warn him that he was using
scalding water. Gradually he destroyed
his eyes with his daily washing. (Philip
Yancey, Where Are You God When It Hurts?
[Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1977], 32-34).”
Lord
willing in our next SD we will look further at the following: “Leprosy is a graphic illustration of sin.”
Spiritual meaning for my life today: I never want to become numb to sin like the
leper is numb to feeling.
My Steps of Faith for Today: In my devotional listening to the Bible today
the following verse was very meaningful to me:
“Then Asa called to the LORD his God and said, "LORD, there is no one besides You to
help in the battle between the powerful and those who have no strength;
so help us, O LORD our God, for we trust in You, and in Your name have come
against this multitude. O LORD, You are our God; let not man prevail against
You’” (2 Chron. 14:11).
3/23/2021 10:54 AM
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