A sore throat reminder






A sore throat, I hate it. In Delhi a sore throat is far from an uncommon thing given the air quality here. As usual I find myself with one all over again. It’s the kind where it hurts to swallow anything – liquid or solid or even my own saliva (a gross observation but an important one, you will see). As expected I’ve spent a day feeling grumpy about it and sorry for myself. Towards the end of the day yesterday I was particularly grumpy about everything to do with my voice and throat and I decided I would go to bed early. I was annoyed because I had to pass up a rather tasty dinner because it was hurting too much to swallow. I lay in bed and I thought to myself “wow… I swallow a lot.” Remember I said every time I swallowed, even my own saliva it was hurting. I had become very aware of the amount of times I was swallowing in a day. It’s an activity that just keeps happening through the day in the background. Now, suddenly because it hurt each time, I was aware of this background activity. I thought to myself “only when it hurts to do so did I realize how much I sallow.”


Almost immediately another thought came to my mind. This phenomenon was the same with another deeper part of my life, a more spiritual part. I realized that only when it hurts to do so do I also realize how much I follow. Sure I follow God and I love walking with Him, but as I look back on my own life, as I think back on stories others have shared and the life stories I have read I see there that following is especially tested when it hurts to do so. For many of us we have rendered following Jesus to this background of our life activity when it deserves to be the main thing in our hearts. Maybe God is using that rough time you are going through to test out that background activity and to help you answer the question – how much do I really follow? 

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