A CAVITY IN YOUR LIFE?

One of the things Dad doesn't want to hear is "I think I have a cavity." Unless the family has good dental insurance, that statement is punctuated with huge dollar signs. Beyond cost, cavities also cause the possessor a lot of pain. Thus, the word cavity comes with a lot of negative connotation. The word cavity is generic enough. It just means a hollow place in the body; however, its use to describe the hollow place caused in a tooth by decay makes it an unpleasant word. I heard a preacher last night describing the need of an uncommitted Christian as, among other things, having a "cavity in your life." I had never heard it put quite like that before. Usually, the something missing in one's life is described as an emptiness, a void, a vacuum, etc. But, a cavity? He was right. Many people have a cavity in their life-they have a hollowness in their soul. And, usually the cavity, as a tooth cavity, was caused by decay. As certainly as bacteria eats a hollow in a tooth, sin devours the soul and inner life leaving a hollowness. Although we often view them as torturers and their tools as their instruments of torture, dentists do a great and helpful thing. They clean out the germs that are hollowing a place in the tooth and then they fill that hollow place. They clean and fill the cavity. So does God. He removes the sin that has eaten its way into our hearts and fills the emptiness it has left. He does it through the work of the cross. Perhaps, next time you think about a cavity you will think of the cross and not a dentist chair.