In my own life I have learned to view the circumstances of my life as potential learning avenues for my spirit. Over time I have come to understand that God can and does speak to us through just about anything; we just have to learn to listen, to watch, and to wait. When there is a variance to my daily routine, I’ve learned to be especially alert, inquisitive, and curious.
Long ago I learned a phrase “the natural parallels the spiritual” that has been an accurate guide for my life. It basically means that things going on in the natural world around me are frequently a parallel to things happening in the spirit world around me. So when there is a disturbance in the normal flow of activity, my antennas are up and I am seeking the Spirit to see if there’s something I am supposed to be learning or doing.
A few weeks ago, I went from normal to intense pain in the span of a few hours. Two days later we learned I had a kidney stone. As a general rule I walk in excellent health and have not been to a doctor in over two decades. (two exceptions, another story) So when this occurred and I was finally able to concentrate apart from pain management, I began to seek God for understanding. This is what I learned was going on in my spirit that my body paralleled.
First, understand the parts and roles of the scenario before you.
The kidney’s job is to filter your blood. All the blood in your body passes through the kidney about forty times a day. The kidneys remove waste in the blood, control the body’s fluid balance, keep electrolytes at the proper level, and adjust salt, water and minerals as needed, as a quick overview. In my own thinking, it’s one of the primary waste processing plants of your body.
The waste that gets filtered out at the kidney is turned into urine, and drains to the bladder where it exits the body. The kidney has a million tiny filters called nephrons.
Kidney stones (nephrolithiasis) are formed in the kidneys when minerals in the urine form crystals (stones). They can grow large enough to block urine flow if they are not excreted through the urine when small enough. They grow in size when there’s not enough water passing through the kidney to roll them through, and additional crystals layer upon existing crystals, making larger “stones”.
Some additional breakdown
Blood is the life force to the human body. Here are some primary functions of blood:
- Provides oxygen and removes carbon dioxide
- Transports nutrients and vitamins
- Brings waste products to the liver and kidneys
- Regulates body temperature
Basically blood is the conduit for life to the human body and the kidneys are processing plants for removing waste from the blood.
Kidney stones hinder the kidneys work and can obstruct the flow of waste leaving the body.
“The natural parallels the spiritual” concept
The life force of my spirit has to run through a purifying filter (representative of the kidney) to remove impurities and things that hinder growth or may cause disease. Our blood transports all the things our bodies are exposed to, whether from food, water or air. In like manner, our spirits must be cleansed of contaminants in thought, word and deed, external forces, etc. This happens through a variety of processes, like confession, repentance, tearing down strongholds of thought, deliverance from dark spirits, etc.
When we have extra stuff that doesn’t get flushed out by the water, it can lodge in our spirits. If it stays long, stuff akin to the original material begins to layer upon it, sticking to the original crystal (thoughts, attitudes, whatever it is that is unhealthy) and it grows, hindering the cleansing process eventually and preventing a thorough elimination of waste from our spirit.
When I asked what my kidney stone represented in my own spiritual welfare, the Spirit showed me it was a rock of cynicism or distrust from the disappointments of the last few years. Instead of allowing the Spirit to wash them out of me, I held onto a few of them and they have compounded with additional losses and disappointments over time. The Body of Christ in its formal structure (the institution of the church) has dealt me some serious blows over time that have hardened me to the institutional church and bred great distrust in me of its members. The wounds from those I call family over the last few years have hardened me toward trusting people in general and feeling safe to engage in intimate friendships of depth or trust.
Interestingly, kidney stones are formed from excess minerals in your blood. Do you know what minerals are?
In other words, components of daily life. And some of these daily life components have crystalized in my spirit. Loss and failure and rejection and misunderstandings are common in life.
What cleanses us from the things that may be crystalizing in our spirits? The water. What is the water? The water is Christ.
Let’s dig a little deeper…
John 4:10 tells us Christ is the Living Water and verse 14 tells us that whoever drinks of the water that Christ gives will never thirst again. The water that Christ gives will become a well of water spring up to eternal life.
This water WASHES… [from my journal:] And I wonder if I’ve been so busy, so preoccupied that I haven’t been filled with the Living Water to wash these deposits of earthly debris from my spirit. And have they been rolling around in my spirit, crystallizing with other earthly debris – getting larger and larger – impeding the purifying of the Spirit’s washing….
We know that on the great day, the last day of the feast, that Jesus stood up and cried, “If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me as the Scripture has said, ‘Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.’”
[from my journal:] And I wonder can I say that Christ’s living waters are flowing out of my heart? For we know from the overflow of the heart the mouth speaks. And my mouth has at times been polluted with foul language – and has at times been cynical and untrusting…. It has been wary and weary and even hopeless at times. Not all the time, mind you. But enough to make the case that my heart is polluted, at least with some things that are unChristlike. Sometimes I sound like the world.
1John 5:18 tells us there are three that testify: the Spirit, the water, and the blood. Now really ponder this. In the body the blood brings nutrients to the body for performance and function and is a carrier for life and the carrier to remove harmful substances.
The water is what washes the harmful substances out of and away from the body. It cleanses and purifies.
Two of the three testimonies are analogous to the human body.
Revelation 7:17, 21:6, 22:1 and 22:17 tell us about the “water of life”.
Ephesians 5:26 tell us Christ “cleansed her (the ekklesia) by the washing of water with the word” – which tells me the Word of God and Christ Himself are vital for cleansing.
“washed by the water” is said by the great theologians to be symbolic of our baptism into faith.
Barnes tells us water is the emblem of purifying, that it cleanses the heart from pollutants. He says it is the work of the Spirit by the process of purifying, which is commenced in the soul.
Jamieson, Fausset and Brown tell us it’s the putting away of sins by repentance (by which baptism is the sacramental seal). He warns that in being washed we are not to return to our filth.
“washing of regeneration” is another term used in Scripture and by the theologians. They say it is the process of washing away your sins.
Titus 3:5 speaks of this. “…he saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit.”
This refers to the cleansing, purifying influences of the Spirit of God and His grace that cleanses and purifies.
The word in Titus 3:5 “washing” goes back to the vocabulary for bath, bathing, cleansing.
When cross-referenced with 1 Peter 3:21, “Baptism, which corresponds to this, now saves you, not as a removal of dirt from the body but as an appeal to God for a good conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ.”
Pause to process
So what has been happening with me is these daily life minerals, excess disappointments and failures, etc. have not been washed away by Christ and His Word because I have not been immersed in Him and His Word enough to wash some of these especially hard things out and away. The solution is simple, confess and repent of the stone, and allow Christ to move it. Chug a lot of water, immerse myself on what His Word says about these things, and let them move the hindrance out and away.
Let’s revisit 1 Peter because there’s something else there
“Baptism, which corresponds to this, now saves you, not as a removal of dirt from the body but as an appeal to God for a good conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ.”
What was the “this” Peter was speaking of that corresponds with baptism? Look at the preceding verses and we’ll learn it was Noah and his family being saved out of the flood. Apply this! Washing, purifying through regeneration that comes from the Spirit saves us out of the judgment on the world.
God in His infinite mercy sent me some temporary pain to help me get my spirit regenerated to keep me from judgments coming on the world. Oh His mercy is so great! His love is so perfect! I am in awe of Him.
And this removal of this stone, (this hardness of my own heart that has become too wary to be an instrument at times for God because it sits in cynicism and distrust that blinds me at times to what God is doing), creates a pathway for a good conscience before God by the power of Christ’s resurrection. It makes me clean and purified, able to be preserved from worldly judgments and kept by Christ Himself.
All praise to God.