It's Just a Flesh Wound

                I have discovered that it is a passion of mine to make the most obscure references possible and somehow dig out some profound truth. God just uses so much stuff to inspire me that it is fun to let my mind wander. In this blog I have written posts about megaphones, meatloaf, face paint, bacteria, nickels, salt, crickets, macaroni and tons of other things which occupy my brain and I imagine more absurdity is yet to come. Needless to say I was pretty excited when God taught me this one; but only for a minute, because this one kind of hurts.

            If you haven’t seen the movie Monty Python and the Holy Grail you should, first of all, go shave your beard, give up your top hat and move out of the Amish community you must live in. Second, I need to inform you of one of the most important scenes in comedic cinema history.

            King Arthur and his band of followers are galloping through the forest (kind of) in search of the Holy Grail when they come across a tall knight in black armor who refuses to let them pass without a duel to the death. Valiant King Arthur steps up to the plate and draws his sword and the two commence in epic knight-errantry. Suddenly a blow is struck to the black knight and we see his arm fall off accompanied by squirts of fake blood. King Arthur assumes his opponent is through but is surprised to find that the knight has switched arms and continued the dual. Next comes the other arm and then the knees until finally the black knight is left as a mere stub of person waddling around the ground still spitting out threats and promising to bite King Arthur’s legs off, as his teeth are the only weapons he has left. In the midst of this bloody battle, the black knight responds to his massacre in a very funny British accent by yelling out “It’s just a flesh wound!”

            In case you didn’t catch this from the paragraph, it is supposed to be hilarious. I, as well as a large majority of my people the nerds, certainly think so. The man looses all his limbs and without batting an eye counts them all as just “flesh wounds.” If you don’t get it, just fake it with me for a second.

            I want that ridiculous kind of faith every day.

            Whatever it is that might be attacking me is just a flesh wound. Jesus said not to be afraid of the one who can kill the body but can’t touch the soul₁ and that means knowing the difference between right now and eternity.

            Most of the things we face in life attack our flesh. They threaten our wants and maybe even our needs but we hardly ever come up against something so drastic our eternity is left hanging in the balance. It is just a flesh wound.

            Your flesh is probably that thing that is keeping you away from God anyway. Shouldn’t we be a little excited our flesh is being attacked?

            Go and thank that guy for always getting on your last nerve and doing whatever he can to infuriate you. He is showing you that you are very impatient and not very understanding of the depth of people. Now you know you need to work on that.

            Thank those bill collectors for wanting all your money. Without them you might start thinking you could actually meet all your needs without God’s help!

            Thank those people in charge of you who are always bossing you around and treating you terribly. When you are in charge you will know what it feels like to be on the bottom and will be a better leader because of it.

            When we realize that we were built for eternity, daily issues don’t seem like issues anymore.

            If you are at that point when you just can’t take it anymore just remember that you were built for a kingdom bigger than your surroundings. If that doesn’t help you could just use you worst British accent possible and yell out “It’s just a flesh wound!” If nothing else it will make the people around you feel better.

            Anybody you need to go and thank for helping you attack your flesh today? 

            _{1-Mathew 10: 28 NIV}