Get Sick—Get Better

A commentary by Frank Dunkle

You have a runny nose and a headache. Your throat hurts. You cough, shiver and generally feel just awful!

Sound familiar? These are symptoms of the all-too-common, common cold.

During the past couple months nearly everybody I know caught a cold. Have you had one yet? If you have, then you know the miserable feeling. My wife had a cold that seemed like it would never end—but finally, miraculously, it did.

We take for granted that eventually we'll get over even the worst colds. However, the way we recover from infection is nothing short of an actual miracle!

What we call the common cold is actually an invasion of the human body by microscopic viruses. The viruses reproduce rapidly and cause tremendous damage.

Yet before you are even aware that you have an infection, mechanisms of your immune system have begun complex counteractions that will eventually destroy the harmful invaders. The results are usually uncomfortable and not pretty. The fever and excessive mucus associated with a cold are actually methods your body uses to fight disease.

You're probably familiar with this process. But many may not realize just how complex and incredibly amazing the system built into our bodies to fight infection really is.

I recently read Darwin's Black Box: The Biochemical Challenge to Evolution by Michael Behe. It includes a chapter that describes how the immune system functions at the molecular level.

There is no way to explain those intricacies in this brief commentary, but I can say that it strongly supports Dr. Behe's conclusion: The human body could not possibly have evolved by chance. No doubt, a supremely intelligent creator designed it in extremely exacting detail. He even built in systems for self-repair.

We cannot control those systems. We are barely beginning to understand how they work. Yet they have always been there and have saved my life and yours countless times.

Thousands of years ago, King David of the Bible similarly thought about how amazing the human body is, and he reached a similar conclusion. In one of his inspired poems he wrote, “I will praise You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; marvelous are Your works, and that my soul knows very well” (Psalm 139:14).

David knew what science shows us: The human body is an astounding creation. Even getting over a cold is a divine miracle!

It would be naïve for me to stop there though. We know that there are some diseases our bodies do not routinely fight off. People die of sickness and injury every day, and that does not seem miraculous at all. But this doesn't mean that the Creator made a mistake.

Often, we make the mistakes. A study of God's message to us, the Bible, shows that He included considerable instruction about how to maintain good health. The Bible tells us types of foods to eat—or not eat—and how to avoid spreading contagious diseases.

The Bible also describes a method for asking God to work a unique miracle of healing specifically for you—or me. This requires calling an ordained minister of Jesus Christ for anointing and prayer (James 5:14).

To learn more about the Bible's instructions for maintaining your health, check out Keys to Long, Healthy Life.

In the meantime remember, when you finally get over that cold, it's a miracle! VT