I recently went to the dentist for the first time since the spring of 1998. Yup, that’s 7.5 years. Actually, I’ve gone twice recently. The first trip was my whole mouth evaluation where they took a full set of xrays, plus some other stuff. Then just this last week I went back and had my cleaning done. One thing that was found during my eval that is kinda not good was some leftover bracket adhesive from when I had braces…in 1994!!! Seriously, 11 years later I still had stuff stuck on #13 — whatever tooth that is, all I know is that it was on the upper left. Anywho, as I was brushing my teeth the night before my cleaning I was thinking about how it seems that we treat God and the dentist the same.
In the hours/days before you go to the dentist (understand that I’m making some societal assumptions here) you try to clean your teeth as best you can. You brush with a little bit more effort, making sure you get to all of those hard-to-reach places wishing you had a flip-top head. Even though you know it’s the dentist’s job to clean your teeth, you want to have them commend you for doing such a good job keeping your chompers in good health.
When you (again, making societal assumptions) are struggling with sin, depression, trauma, etc. the way that we tend to react is not to approach God with the problem. Rather, we think that if we work a little bit harder, listen to all of the self-help guides, watch all of Dr. Phil’s shows :-), that we can fix the problem and THEN approach God, expecting God to commend us for the Godly life we lead. This is one of my complaints/grips about the way Christianity is portrayed/perceived. The perception I see is that God only loves those who have everything in order, and if I’ve got something “wrong” with me then I need to get it fixed so God will love me. I’m hopeful this portrayal/perception will change.
It’s weird what you think of while your brushing your teeth.
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