How often do we really carefully look inside our mouth? We check out our smile to see if something's stuck in between our teeth. But beyond that, we just don't look all that often. All that carefully.
One day, my tongue felt something different in my mouth. This made me try to play dentist on myself, but couldn't see anything. I called the dentists office and explained to the receptionist what was going on. They were kind enough to schedule me for the following morning.
After sitting down in the chair, I repeated everything to the dental hygienist. They looked carefully in my mouth for a while before calling in the dentist. They poked around for a bit and then they gave me the good news - bad news.
Good news - my teeth were fine. No big problem's, but....
Bad news - there was an old filling that was still ok, but it was a little loose.
He suggested that this would be a good time to drill out the old filling and replace it with a modern filling. After talking about it for a minute, I agreed to move forward. And then that's when they dropped the big dental bomb.
"We can do this without any novocaine." OK?
It's at times like this, when the rubber meets the road, that you find out if you really trust your dentist or not. It's like that scene from Batman when The Joker asks, "Who ya gonna trust?"(1). With the potential of that drill hitting a nerve and the resulting pain, you ask yourself if you really trust them or not.
So, I looked my dentist in the eye and said, "I trust you. Do what you think best." We went forward and they drilled out the old filling without much pain at all. They they put in a new filling that's working fine to this day.
It's one thing to say that we trust our dentist with our teeth. With all those probes and drills. With the potential of instant pain that we'll remember for a long time. But it's something else altogether different to trust God with our life.
Or is it? Dentists study long and hard. They've got skills and abilities that we can only dream about. They know how our teeth were made and how best to take care of them. Fix them.
So, since God made us and understands everything there is about us, doesn't it make sense that we trust the one that made us? Loves us? Cares for us? Died for us? Wants to be with us for all eternity?
It's time to take that step of trusting God for life. It's the smartest thing we can do.
(1) https://youtu.be/a71VqHpza58?si=dujV1bf4m8gyCjle&t=163