Mistaking Symptoms For The Cause

Mistaking Symptoms for the Cause

There’s no cure for the common cold. So when people get sick, they mainly look to survive the symptoms. As long as they’re not overcome with coughing, sneezing, and blowing their noses, they make an attempt to function.

Too often, with our emotional or spiritual wounds, we mistake the symptoms for the cause and try to address only the surface of things.

We’re constantly irritated with our children, not realizing the impact of our father’s anger toward us. We’re less patient in our second marriage, not understanding that we carried the wounds of the previous marriage into the new. We suffer from chronic anxiety, yet our restlessness is caused by hurts from long ago.

No matter how well you’ve learned to manage your pain, it still affects you. Consider that some of your present “sickness” could be a symptom that deeper wounds are untreated. Spend more time addressing the cause rather than just treating the symptoms.

People look at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart. —1 Samuel 16:7