Lancing the Bite

I've realized that the more I press into the Lord and start to understand His holiness, I become more acutely aware of my own unholiness (and selfishness and pride and insecurity and...) But the greatest thing about our loving Father is that He won't allow us to sit in our mess, wallowing in the fact that we're dirty.  I once heard a story about a father who had to take his daughter to the hospital because she had a severe spider bite.  They had to leave the lake and the rest of the family during vacation to take care of this growing mass on her leg.  Once the doctor confirmed that the bite was in fact poisonous, they made preparations to lance the area to get all of the infection out.  The father held is daughter's hand and told her that he wouldn't leave her, but he did not stop the doctor from putting a knife to his little girl.  The father knew, despite the daughter's pleading and crying, that the only way to get rid of the poison was to dig in and press the infected area.  He knew there would be pain.  He understood that the daughter would much rather enjoy her vacation time at the lake than in the hospital.  But he also understood that if the area went untreated, it could potentially kill his beloved child.  The more I understand the character of God, the more I appreciate and crave His rebuking.  Over and over again, God shows me areas in my life that need to be lanced.  And the more I press in, the more desperately grateful I am for grace.  Sin left alone starts to affect not just one area of life, but can potentially destroy all joy and intimacy with the Lord.  Our fleshly desire is to cover up sin, stick a spiritual bandaid on top of it, and pretend like we're doing just fine.  But that won't fix the problem any more than a physical bandaid would stop a spider bite from spreading.  My mantra for the past year has been "there is freedom and healing in transparency."  When we honestly seek the Lord and allow Him to expose some dark parts of our heart, He is faithful to restore what has been broken and heal what has been hurt.  He digs in and presses and sometimes the lesson is hard and the process messy, but the result is always restoration.