Counting Backward from Ten

When a patient undergoes general anesthesia, they must do something remarkably counterintuitive: surrender consciousness entirely. You lie on a cold table beneath fluorescent lights, surrounded by strangers in masks, and when the anesthesiologist asks you to count backward from ten, you begin to let go. Ten... nine... eight... and somewhere around seven, you vanish.

In 1846, at Massachusetts General Hospital, dentist William T.G. Morton publicly demonstrated ether anesthesia for the first time. A patient named Gilbert Abbott breathed in the vapor while surgeon John Collins Warren removed a tumor from his neck. When it was over, Warren turned to the astonished audience and said, "Gentlemen, this is no humbug."

But here is what strikes me — Abbott had to trust first. Before the ether could work, he had to inhale.

Trust in God works the same way. We do not always get to stay conscious through every process He initiates in our lives. Sometimes faith means counting backward into the unknown, believing that the Great Physician's hands are steady even when we can no longer watch them work.

Proverbs 3:5 says, "Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding." That phrase — "lean not" — is the spiritual equivalent of letting the anesthesia take hold. Stop gripping. Stop monitoring. Let go.

The healing you need most may require you to stop watching.