GREAT THINGS ENTERPRISE
CLAUDE BLACK
Mark 9:25
Correct Diagnosis
Diagnosing a problem must come before correcting it. I had trouble with my car’s engine. I explained the issue to a clerk at an auto parts store, and he told me what he thought the problem was. I purchased the part he recommended, installed it, and discovered that it didn’t resolve the issue. Later, someone else offered a different diagnosis, so I replaced another part, but that didn’t fix it either. Eventually, the engine stopped running altogether, and the car had to be towed to a repair shop.
The technician (no longer called a “mechanic”) at the garage brought out a small handheld device, plugged it into the car’s diagnostic port, read the screen, and said, “Here’s the problem.” He pointed to a small sensor. He correctly diagnosed the problem, replaced the part, and the engine started and ran correctly. The car now had three new parts—two of which hadn’t solved the problem.
In Mark’s account of a man who brought his son to Jesus for help, he wrote, “But Jesus, seeing the crowd rushing together toward them, rebuked the unclean spirit, saying to it, ‘Mute and deaf spirit, I command you: come out of him and never enter him again.’” (Mark 9:25) Jesus didn’t address the boy’s education, home life, or companions; instead, he correctly identified the true problem—the “mute and deaf spirit”—and confronted it directly: “Come out of him and never enter him again.”
I was experiencing abdominal pain. I described it to my physician and explained what I thought the problem might be. He said my diagnosis was incorrect but noted that, given everything going on, I might have developed an ulcer. He recommended an over-the-counter medication. Each pill was about the size of a grain of rice, but it relieved the pain. That experience reminded me again of the hazards of self-diagnosis.
I learned valuable lessons from both the abdominal pain and the car trouble (actually, more than one) about the importance of proper diagnosis—just as Jesus identified the boy’s problem correctly.
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