from Militaryingermany.com Website
My five year old, Caleb, got a very bad strawberry-sized sore on his knee. He fell on the concrete and took the top layer of skin off. It hurt, but mom with her incredible medicinal powers was able to soon take care of it with a Star Wars band-aid! It seemed to instantly impart healing! Two days later, the wound was healing nicely when Caleb was playing on the trampoline. He landed on the knee and scraped it again. I was at the back door when I heard the cry. I yelled, “Caleb, Are you okay?” Through tears he yells, not for me or even his mom, but for a magical Band-aid! I quickly grab a Band-aid and place it on the knee to calm his worries and allow him to continue to jump!
Are kids amazing! Isn’t it something how they can believe putting a Band-aid over the wound really heals and stops the pain of the wound. Out of sight; out of mind! A Band-aid has been used by parents to fix many a scrape and bruise. But the Band-aid doesn’t really do anything to actually address the real problem. It only covers up the sore. It doesn’t give medicine or instantly heal the wound, it only hides and protects it.
In truth, we often do not grow out of this same thought process as adults. We want to cover up our problems and hurts. We want to hide them and act like there is nothing wrong. We feel better if we don’t see them or think about them. Our Band-aids are not little sticky bandages, but come in all types of ways. We cover our sores and problems with nice physical things that we hope make us happy, or at least keep us distracted. We put on strength and defensiveness that refuses to allow others to speak to us about our “real” issue. Most of our problems are like onions that have layers and go back years, but we don’t have the courage to take off the layers, we only want a new Band-aid to cover the outer sore.
Jesus was all about grabbing hold of our Band-aids and just ripping them off and leaving a sting in the process. He went straight to the heart with his teachings. The Pharisees of his day focused on the outward, they had lots of pretty Band-aids, but Christ exposed their hearts. The Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7) is all about Christ going deeper than the outward works and focusing on the condition of our hearts. Until we are willing to quit trying to put Band-aids on our problems and truly address the root problems of our hearts, we will remain immature, addicted, and hypocritical. Christ came to change us from the inside-out! We first have to quite resorting to Band-aid fixes and address the real problem.
What Band-aids do you need to leave off and choose to treat the real problem?
