At The Dentist

Yesterday I went to the dentist for a check-up and cleaning. Now, let me preface my story with a few items…

• I love my dentist. He goes to Palm Valley and is incredible.
• I went about 30 years of my young life w/o going to the dentist, so I’ve been making up for it over the last 2 years.
• My saliva generates a great deal of bacteria (dentist says), which means I need cleanings every 3 months. I know, this was gross, but it’s part of the story.

It had been almost 7 months since my last cleaning, which is a long time for me. In addition, I’ve been really bad about flossing lately. I know moms, please don’t be angry with me As I sat in the chair, I could see the look of disapproval on the hygienists face. We both knew what was obvious, I hadn’t been good, and it was going to take some serious work (and pain) to clean up my teeth.

Now, I have to be honest, part of me says “don’t worry about the cleaning”, nobody can tell the difference. But, if we don’t go after the fledging bacteria, a great deal of decay sets in. So, I endured the pain, and my teeth are now clean. The hygienist chided me…”make sure you floss daily, but just know it’s going to hurt for the first week until the gingivitis is completely gone.”

Why have I told you this? As I was driving home, the whole deal reminded me of sin in our lives. How?…

We often become comfortable with sin, because it’s “really not that big of a deal”. We even rationalize that nobody else notices. As sin progresses, it decays our spiritual health and destroys our relationship with God.

In order to prevent this spiritual decay, we’ve got to “floss daily”. We must do a thorough, daily spiritual cleaning, by spending time in God’s Word, prayer, and confession. If we’ll attack sin daily, it won’t be allowed to grow in our life, and we’ll have long term health.

One warning: if you’re not in the habit of eliminating sin, your initial cleaning is going to be bigger, and more painful. The first week is going to hurt, but it’s going to get better as you make this a daily habit

I look forward to seeing you, and your beautiful smiles this week at PVC!