Finger Lickin Good

Obedience to God is sometimes very odd. Anyone who has known me for any length of time, knows that I used to be quite a germaphobe. If it smelled dirty or looked dirty, it was dirty! And, as my mother could attest, I never had to be told to bathe or wash my hands. It was already done. I just was always a bit fastidious. This was all prior to my being a shepherd of sheep and goats. Somehow being a shepherd and being OCD didn’t quite fit together well. Having to regularly check and touch very dirty parts of sheep and goats cured me. This was coupled with having to be elbow deep inside a sheep to assist in the lambing process. That would resolve someone’s fear of germs or send them running away screaming. So needless to say, God brought about a healing and resolved my issue.

Then one day, I lopped off a half inch of my index finger in a juicer. I’m not going to be any more graphic, but that whole process wasn’t pretty. At the end of the two surgeries and weeks of healing, there was just me and a finger that felt like Frankenstein. Mentally, it just wasn’t mine. There wasn’t a whole lot of feeling, and in order to build a new finger, they had to take flesh from the back of my hand. It just didn’t feel like my finger anymore.

I couldn’t get over the creep factor. I really didn’t want to use the finger or even look at it. So I asked God what I should do. He responded with a very quick and odd response, “Put it in your mouth!” I laughed, “Finger Lickin Good?” Many emotions ran through my head. Part of me thought, “ YOU HAVE GOT TO BE KIDDING?” Another part was fearful and yet another chuckled at such a weird thing to say. Well, as you know, God is always right. So with trepidation, I shoved that nasty thing into my mouth. The first benefit was the fact that I didn’t have to see it; but the downside to that was that the dirty thing was in my mouth. I just kept it there, not quite sure what to do. But within moments, like kissing the frog-prince, it became mine. WOW!

Imagine this being the solution to mental separation. Somehow the finger wasn’t mine until I put it in my mouth. Clearly this is something primal. Babies put everything in their mouths. And who knows, had I not asked and obeyed God, I might be sporting a glove like the late Michael Jackson.

I say all this to show the results of following the Shepherd wherever He leads. Later during my physical therapy, I told my therapist and she said the idea was ingenious. She even asked if she could write a paper on it. God is amazing! His wisdom was so much higher than mine and resolved my issue within moments.

“If you love Me, you will obey what I command.”
John 14:15