The Insulin That Only Works If You Take It

In January 1922, fourteen-year-old Leonard Thompson lay dying in Toronto General Hospital. He weighed just sixty-five pounds, wasting away from Type 1 diabetes — a disease that was, at the time, a death sentence. Then Frederick Banting and Charles Best arrived with something extraordinary: insulin, extracted from the pancreas of cattle. They injected it into Leonard's arm, and within days his blood sugar dropped. Color returned to his face. He began to eat again.

But here is what matters for us this morning: insulin did not cure Leonard Thompson. It saved his life, yes — but only as long as he kept taking it. Every single day, for the rest of his life, Leonard had to submit to the needle. One injection was not enough. The miracle required his daily, faithful cooperation.

Obedience to God works the same way. We sometimes treat it like a one-time event — a decision made at an altar, a prayer whispered in a hospital room — and then we wonder why the spiritual vitality fades. But the Lord never promised that one act of surrender would carry us through a lifetime. He said, "Take up your cross daily." Daily bread. Daily mercy. Daily yes.

Leonard Thompson lived another thirteen years because he trusted the treatment enough to submit to it every morning. The grace of God is infinitely more powerful than insulin — but it asks the same thing of us: faithful, daily obedience.