S5 E6 - Overnight Infections & Watching Ice Melt

Our youngest has another double ear infection, and it came on fast. There was no warning, and suddenly she was miserable. As I held her tonight, I sat and watched my ice melt in my glass - it was slow, and it was subtle. What a contrast. 

We need to remember that spiritual growth and spiritual deterioration are not like an infection - neither happen overnight or are sudden. They are like watching ice melt. Both are slow, both are subtle. The question is - are we growing or backsliding? 

#SetYourMindAbovePodcast

Transcript

What if I told you that God could be seen in the most ordinary things every day? 

What if I told you that every day, ordinary events could teach us extraordinary eternal truths? Would you believe me? 

Welcome back to season 5 of the Set Your Mind Above Podcast! My name is BJ Sipe, and I am a Christian, a preacher, a husband, and a father. And I’m excited to share a few moments together with you learning some important lessons from the simplest things. Let’s grow together! 

It seems like no matter what we do over the past month, someone is either sick or injured in this household. We’ve had the flu come through. We’ve had ear infections. We’ve had CrossFit injuries. We’ve had just a little bit of everything to be honest. But out of all of us, our poor little Finley has been the brunt of most of it. Finley has had a history if getting very frequent and serious ear infections throughout her life. About a year ago, we had debated getting tubes put in her ears to help alleviate these ongoing infections. But for a while, after some other more natural methods, they seemed to taper off. But since the start of this year, Finley has had to be on antibiotics already a handful of times, so needless to say we have an appointed with the ENT to get those in as soon as possible. Because now . . . she’s having to do it again. Last night, she woke up around 3 am in tremendous pain and didn’t drift back off to sleep until around 6:30 am. Kylie and I took turns with her, doing what we could to help comfort her while she kept crying and saying, “my ears hurt.” There is nothing more heartbreaking as a parent than to watch your kids hurt after having done all you already can to help them. As soon as the pediatrician opened, we called and booked her an appointment for their earliest opening they had today. As soon as we walked in, the nurses who normally beam at Finley’s bubbly personality were able to tell just how miserable she was. She wouldn’t take her head off my chest, wouldn’t be sat down, and just whimpered there. Before long, it was confirmed – she had a nasty double ear infection that had seemingly come up over night! They prescribed antibiotics as well as medicated ear drops and sent us with much sympathy on our way home. 

The rest of the day didn’t get much better. She didn’t eat. She didn’t play. She just wanted to be held and cried while we did all we could to help her be comfortable as the medicine kicked in. During dinner she refused to eat, so Kylie and I took turns holding her while the other ate. When it was my turn, I filled up a big glass of ice water and set it down on the coffee table before nestling Finley onto my lap. I put on her current favorite show, Danny Go, and stroked her hair while she curled up into my chest. After a few minutes, I went to grab a drink of my water but realized I had left it a bit too far out of my reach. To get it, I would have had to set Finley down, which would have caused a chain reaction meltdown, and I wasn’t about to do that. So, I just sat there thirsty and held my little girl. I wasn’t all that interested in Finley’s show, I mean it wasn’t like she was watching Bluey, so, don’t ask me why, but I decided to do something else entirely…watch my ice melt. Yep, some people watch paint dry. Others watch their ice melt. As I sat there, from second to second there seemed to be absolutely no change whatsoever. But as the minutes passed, it was clear that something had changed. By the time twenty minutes had gone by, there was no more ice left in the glass – it had all melted. As I sat there watching now a full glass of just water, I thought to myself – what a contrast! Finley’s ear infection came on so fast and without warning – it was sudden. Whereas with my ice water, you could hardly notice a difference at all, but with certainty slowly and surely it was changing – it was just subtle. 

At this point, you’re probably wondering where in the world I’m going with this, and that’s fair. I mean, ear infections and melting ice are probably not the first things you think about when you’re looking for spiritual connections. But I promise you, there is one, and I believe it is an important one. And that connection is this – both spiritual growth and spiritual deterioration are very much like one of these things – even though we desire and assume for it sometimes to be like the other. In other words, both spiritual growth and spiritual deterioration are not a double ear infection, they are like melting ice. 
 
 Let’s start by looking at what they are not like – a double ear infection. What do I mean by that? Two things. First, spiritual growth does not happen overnight, despite the fact that we might wish it did. To examine this, let us look at the text of James chapter 1. In vv. 5, James says the following, “Now if any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God—who gives to all generously and ungrudgingly—and it will be given to him.” This is a freebie, my friends. If you lack wisdom, and want wisdom, James tells you that God is ready and willing to freely give it to you! But how does that happen? I’ll tell you how it doesn’t happen – it doesn’t happen overnight. You don’t simply pray for wisdom, and suddenly God zaps you in the middle of the night and you wake up at 3 am suddenly full of wisdom that you didn’t have hours before. It sounds good, but that’s not reality. We’ll look in just a moment at how God does give it, so let’s put a pin in that for now.  

But secondly, we also need to understand that spiritual deterioration also does not happen overnight. I have watched so many friends over the years walk away from the Lord and deconstruct their faith, and from a distance it might have seemed sudden. But that’s not how faith and trust work. You don’t wake up the next day and suddenly reject everything you once held fast to and were convicted by from the heart. For example, let us consider the disciple Judas Iscariot – the one who betrayed the Lord. Do you really think he just woke up one morning and said, “I’m going to turn over my Master and reject everything I have witnessed and learned over the past several years”? The text of Luke 22 tells us starting in vv. 3, “Then Satan entered Judas, called Iscariot, who was numbered among the Twelve. He went away and discussed with the chief priests and temple police how he could hand him over to them. They were glad and agreed to give him silver. So he accepted the offer and started looking for a good opportunity to betray him to them when the crowd was not present.” There is more to this text than meets the eye. He knew they had been plotting to kill Jesus. He understood the part he could play in such a plot and what he might stand to gain monetarily from it. His decision to reject Jesus was not sudden – and neither (God forbid) is our own spiritual deterioration in our own lives.

No, much rather, both spiritual growth and spiritual deconstruction are like watching ice melt. It might not seem like anything is changing, because of how slow and subtle it is, but over time – change is very evident. Let’s begin with spiritual growth and pick back up in James 1. Okay, if God doesn’t simply zap us with wisdom and change us overnight, how does it happen? In several ways, actually. First, God freely gives us wisdom through his Word. James would go on to say in vv. 21, “Therefore, ridding yourselves of all moral filth and the evil that is so prevalent, humbly receive the implanted word, which is able to save your souls.” Through his Word, God richly and freely gives us wisdom from above – but to acquire such wisdom takes careful study, reflection, and time. It is a lifelong process as we are lifelong students of God’s Word, but the more we dedicate ourselves to rightly divide the Word of Truth the more we grow. It’s subtle, but it’s profound over time. God also gives us wisdom through experience. James would state right before his statement about wisdom the following, “Consider it a great joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you experience various trials, because you know that the testing of your faith produces endurance. And let endurance have its full effect, so that you may be mature and complete, lacking nothing.” (James 1:2-4) We gain wisdom through experience, as we face different trials and our faith is tested. But just like the snowball we talked about last week, over time, slowly and subtly, we build endurance and become stronger. 

But we also must recognize that spiritual deterioration happens in the same way – slowly and subtly. The author of Hebrews would pen the following warning in chapter 2:1, “For this reason, we must pay attention all the more to what we have heard, so that we will not drift away.” When you think about a boat drifting, it is not speeding away from the place that it started. It is slow, just bit by bit moving away from the location it was originally siting. But, given enough time, that boat could drift miles and miles away from where it once was. The fact that spiritual deterioration happens slowly is dangerous, because we might not even be aware that it’s happening. We wake up the next day and we don’t feel all that different – perhaps we don’t even approach our walk with God all that differently, just a little. But bit by bit, as our habits change and our hearts change with them, we could find ourselves in a place that we don’t even have any faith at all – and we have drifted miles away from the place that we started. Like a glass that started full of ice, we look down to see that there is nothing left.

As the old expression goes, “If you’re not growing, you’re backsliding.” One of these things is happening to each one of us right now. It doesn’t happen overnight, and it is not a quick process. It is subtle, it is slow, but it is sure. So, my friends, examine your heart and examine your life and ask yourself – which one am I? Am I growing? Or am I deteriorating? Though it takes a lifetime, it is my prayer that bit by bit each and every day we are growing in the grace and knowledge of our Savior Jesus Christ. If we are to drift, let it not be away from our Savior, but safely into the loving shelter of his arms. 

This has been the Set Your Mind Above Podcast, season 5 episode 6 – and I’m so thankful that we had this time to grow together! A new episode is dropped every Friday, so be sure to tune in next week.  Also, if you’re able to, go ahead and like and subscribe to the podcast, give us a good rating or most importantly share it with someone else – it would help to reach others that I never could alone.  And more than anything, always remember the following: know that I love you, that God loves you, and may we all each and every day set our minds above.