"Just Breathe Normally"

     Have you ever noticed that the one time you can't breathe normally is when someone asks you to "breathe normally"?

     I went to the doctor a few days ago for a basic check-up, something I haven't done since high school.  There was the usual stack of paperwork, the weigh-in, and general questions about how I was feeling.  Most people go to the doctor because they have an ailment- it felt weird to answer "no" to every health question, leaving my only possible reason for my visit as "I just wanted to come sit on butcher paper in a backless gown."

     As I sat there answering questions from the nurse and, later, the doctor himself, I was struck by how, even at the age of 27, my physical body is already beginning to deteriorate.  Nothing big, to be sure- everything is still working as it should be and my biggest "sickness" over the past five or six years has probably been just a cold.  But doctors ask specific questions about everything; you stop viewing your body in "big picture" terms and start focusing on each individual part.  Your answers go something like, "Oh, fine, fine...well, there is this one thing..."  And when you look at yourself piece by piece, you notice the little things. 

Little things like:
    my acid reflux over the past few months has become a constant frustration, and so I take a daily med for it
    I have slight, very slight, allergies in the spring and fall...but for 25 years I didn't have allergies at all
    And according to my doctor, my tonsils were "very big"

    In other words, my body is slowly in a state of decay...which, for a Christian, should be no surprise.  All of creation itself is, in Paul's words, a state of "groaning" like a woman in the pains of childbirth.  Although, to be honest, I have yet to hear a plant let out a scream like the ones I hear on TLC's "A Baby Story."

    One of my favorite subjects to teach on with our Junior High teens is the Book of Genesis.  The reason we keep going back there is because it's the beginning- it lays out God's intent for His creation and shows us what the earth was supposed to be like, before sin entered and put us in a slow but steady descent of decay and chaos.  We see this "state of decay" easily in nature: the browning of an apple left out in the sun, the rust of metal in the sea air, and the need for wellness visits at the age of 27.  We see it in man's rebellious nature against God, our inability to live in harmony with our fellow man, and in disease, sickness, and natural disasters.  God's creation is falling apart.  

     But living in a fallen world isn't bad news for Christians; on the contrary, it deepens our hope and joy in Christ even more, as we wait for the day when "all things will be made new!"  Until then, we can "breathe normally" knowing God is good, God is sovereign, and God is love.
   

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