Allergy Capital

The Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America has released its annual list of the 100 worst U. S. cities for allergy sufferers. With all the trouble I have with allergies, especially this time of the year, I was confident Pensacola would be near the top of the list. Turns out the worst place to be for allergies this year is Hartford, CT and Pensacola barely makes the list, coming in at #98. My only reaction is that if there are 97 places worse than this for allergies, I surely feel sorry for those who live in places at the top of the list. They must have runny noses and sinus headaches all the time.

Allergy sufferers are the Rodney Dangerfields of the medical malady world. You remember the late comic, Mr. Dangerfield, who always complained that he didn't get any respect. People don't seem to give you much sympathy when you complain "I feel miserable because of these old allergies."

I know, of course, that allergies aren't normally terminal . . . they just make you wish you were dead sometimes. Still, given the choice of having cancer, stroke, or hay fever, I'd take that dreadful old rhinitis every time. You don't feel healthy; in fact, you feel pretty miserable. But you know that this will pass and you'll be better as soon as the pollen index falls and all the other irritants go away.

This caused me to start thinking about whether Christians ever suffer from any kind of spiritual allergies. We know we should be concerned about our spiritual health. We understand that the soul can experience some spiritual equivalents of fatal diseases. The works of the flesh . . . the things that will keep us out of heaven. If we don't believe in Jesus, we will die in our sins [John 8:24]. If we don't repent, we will perish [Luke 13:3]. Galatians 5:21 says, ". . . those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God." We all know the big, bad sins . . . the terminal spiritual diseases which cause us to lose our souls.

But what about people who don't have anything "fatal" or "serious" wrong with their souls? We've just grown a little lukewarm. We don't have the enthusiasm we used to have. Coming to worship services is more of a chore than a make-your-week special event. Call it indifference or apathy . . . but something isn't just quite right. Maybe you would say the "thrill is gone" in your marriage to the Lord.

Wait a minute. Who said this isn't a serious spiritual malady? Jesus was ready to spit the Laodiceans out of His mouth because they were lukewarm [Revelation 3:16]. We'd better pay attention and find some remedy . . . or else the spiritual blues that many of us face from time to time could draw us away from Christ and leave us stranded in a condition a whole lot worse than the sniffles and runny noses of springtime allergies.

We'll continue this thought later and try to think about some ways we can combat those spiritual allergies that leave us discouraged and "just not caring" as much as we know we should.
In the meantime, go take your allergy pills and get out there and enjoy life.