“Instead, let us test and examine our ways. Let us turn back to the Lord.”

I recently went to see my doctor (an internal medicine generalist) for an annual checkup.  At the conclusion of his general examination he decided that he’d like me to see a specialist to follow up on an area that caught his attention.  He said, “I don’t think there is anything wrong here, but this is what specialists are for.”  It got me thinking that this is why we have the need for functional specialists, experts if you will, within our companies.  I was talking to an entrepreneur who is a bit overwhelmed because he is playing both the general leader of the company and also trying to hold down a couple of specialist roles (Finance, Marketing) at the same time.  Needless to say he is overwhelmed and concerned he is not doing any of the jobs he has all that well.  We can’t always afford to have specialists on hand at all times, but when we feel we need one, we best heed our own advice and find one to take a better look at the situation than what we can do being just a generalist.

It’s a great verse above from Lamentations because God let’s us do the general examinations on our life – looking at areas like our motivations, our attitudes, the use of our time, our resources, how we are treating others, the words we use, etc.  And when we are done with our self-exam He points us back to Him, the great specialist for guidance, advice, wisdom, direction and yes, healing.  If we try to be both the general examiner of ourselves and the specialist then watch out as we might miss what it is that we need to be addressing or worse yet, not be able to address or fix the underlying problem.

Reference:  Lamentations 3:40 (New Living Translation)