A couple of years ago, I made a brief note into a file regarding something I heard from a video on health and, just this morning, I stumbled across it as I was browsing through directories on my computer. I do not recall the video but the following was what I wrote:
DIA-GNOSIS
DIA : "through"
GNOSIS : "knowledge"
Diagnosis : "through knowledge"
If you go to a podiatrist, you are going to be diagnosed with problems in your feet.
If you go to a chiropractor, you will be diagnosed with joint problems.
If you go to a nutritionist, you will receive a diagnosis of some nutritional deficiency.
If you go to a GP, you will probably be diagnosed with something requiring some pills or an injection.
If you go to a surgeon, you will be diagnosed with a need to have something removed.
Et cetera.
Each and every professional sees the world through a lens of their own knowledge and it's never a complete picture of the world as it really is. You may receive a "dia-gnosis" requiring their particular specialised expertise no matter who you go to, although sometimes they will acknowledge their inability to perceive what is going on and defer to a specialist in a different area (the readiness with which they do so being in some sense a measure of their own professional humility). Their world view is limited and oftentimes contains false structures, either on what they believe they know or simply to fill in the gaps in their knowledge, which can then lead to false conclusions. This is true of us all. None of us has perfect knowledge even of the fields in which we have practiced, let alone anything else. We are not omniscient. We are barely even (to coin a word) "monoscient", able to perceive clearly in a single area or direction.
However, the word, diagnosis, can also be cast as "DI-AGNOSIS":
DI : "two"
AGNOSIS : "without knowledge"
Di-agnosis : two (people) without knowledge (both the patient and the practitioner).
It's as if the word contains its own warning; tread carefully when trusting man, always remember that humans invariably inevitably fail.
I thought it a good reminder to always defer to the Lord first and foremost, not to dangerously fallible man. Sure, see the doctor, see the nutritionist, see the surgeon or the dermatologist or the [whatever]ologist, but always, in any field and not just medicine, seek the Lord first. He will then establish your steps.
