Christian Medical & Dental Associations Devotional

Deep Waters

2012-01-24T06:44:00.000-08:00

“…but now it was a river that I could not cross, because the water had risen and was deep enough to swim in – a river that no one could cross” (Ezekiel 47:5, NIV 1984).

He was a new patient with a serious problem from which he would not likely survive. He had already been through a few months of his malady and real questions remained about his immediate future and direction. He loved the Lord and told me that God had prepared him for this journey. “You may not believe this, Doc, but a month or so before all of this started, God spoke to me just as clear as I can hear you in this room. He told me ‘I’m about to take you through some deep waters; do not be afraid.’ And then, when I started going through this, I read about the doctor who was going through cancer, who said he found Christ’s presence in those deep waters---that’s what I’m counting on.”

In the book When Your Doctor Has Bad News, the author retells the story of a Christian ophthalmologist named James Collier who struggled with lung cancer prior to his death. During that journey, Dr. Collier said, “I know that Jesus is all I have and all I need. I know where the road ends. I don’t know how much longer my journey will be, but I do know His majesty awaits me at the end of the road…. If I had the choice, I would not take away this cancer if it meant missing the journey into the deeper waters of God’s love. It has been wonderful.”

This is not a lesson we can learn from standing on the outside of things. Only when our lives crash headlong into the inevitability of our frailty and we realize our absolute dependence on the arms of God do we come to know the breadth and depth of God’s love. There are some truths of life; there is a magnitude of God’s presence that we can only find with near drowning; and, according to Dr. James Collier, “It is worth it all.”

Dear Father,

When I need them, let me know the safety of your arms and the expanse of your love.

Amen

Fear

2012-01-17T08:43:00.000-08:00

“He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High will rest in the shadow of the Almighty” (Psalm 91:1, NIV 1984).

I was seeing her for the first time as a patient. She had come through a difficult surgery that had carried significant risk. Entering surgery, she had relied on her Christian faith and had felt little concern about her outcome. But when she had recovered, she felt different. She began to double lock all the doors and get out of bed to be sure the alarm was on at night. She was always looking back in traffic in case a car was following too closely. She would call to check on her kids many more times a day than before. Someone called her hypervigilant. She told herself, “This can’t be. I’m a Christian.” One day, she poured herself into Psalm 91 and her fear resolved.

We all go through moments of fear in our lives, fear of loss or death or failure. Some of these fears are justified in the sense that we are facing real harm, whereas others rise up out of hidden longings or past defeats. Fear comes from the realization that pain and loss may rise up and take away that which we treasure in our lives.

My pastor claims there are only two emotions: fear and love. He claims that the secret to fear is love and points to 1 John 4:18 “There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear…” (NIV 1984).

Does this mean that we should make ourselves love God more, so that we will lose our fear? Probably not. In the same chapter of John, the record is clear. “This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us…” (1 John 4:10, NIV 1984). The love that drives away my fear is not the love I muster up to hold the monsters out; it is, as in Psalm 91, the feathers of God that cover us even as we shiver in fright. It is God’s love and our hiding in it that drives out our fear. “Rescue me from my enemies, O Lord, for I hide myself in you” (Psalm 143:9, NIV 1984).

“I call on you, O God, for you will answer me; give ear to me and hear my prayer. Show the wonder of your great love, you who save by your right hand those who take refuge in you from their foes. Keep me as the apple of your eye; hide me in the shadow of your wings” (Psalm 17:6-8, NIV 1984).

Dear God,
When I am afraid, let me hide in the shelter of your wings.
Amen

Deliberate

2012-01-10T05:24:00.000-08:00

“There are different kinds of gifts, but the same Spirit. There are different kinds of service, but the same Lord. There are different kinds of working, but the same God works all of them in all men. Now to each one the manifestation of the Spirit is given for the common good” (1 Corinthians 12:4-7, NIV 1984).

Dr. John Michael is one of my heroes.

It began as a commitment to disciple one Christian medical student, Sam, during one summer within John’s radiation oncology practice. When that commitment came to an end, Sam returned to school and Dr. Michael felt called by God to witness for Christ on the streets of our inner city. As John was making these plans, Sam showed up with seven of his Christian classmates and asked if they could do the same. So, Dr. Michael and a dozen or so medical students began to meet each week and walk the streets and the local college campus, telling people about Jesus. Many have come to Christ through their witness. Now, 12 to 15 medical students are discipling 30 college kids to do the same. John Michael is just a doctor, working out what God worked into him, and I am amazed.

It seems clear to me that this young radiation oncologist has been given God’s gift of evangelism. I know that all of us are called to evangelize in our daily lives, but some are given a special gift, like John Michael. I have begged God to make me an effective witness so that people will accept Him through me on a regular basis, but that happens only occasionally.

I don’t envy Dr. Michael’s gift and the gift is not what makes him a hero. John Michael is one of my Christian heroes because he deliberately uses God’s gift. In spite of time constraints, in spite of pressures to be home with his family, in spite of respect issues with his colleagues, in spite of his own realization that he is not “good enough” to be a representative of God’s kingdom, Dr. Michael presses ahead, deliberately working out the gift that God has worked into him. That’s what makes him one of my Christian heroes.

Each of us has been given gifts by God to use with Him in His plan to redeem the world: “…some to be apostles, some to be prophets, some to be evangelists, and some to be pastors and teachers” (Ephesians 4:11, NIV 1984). All of us have been given such gifts to bring this world to know Him and to grow in Him. Most of us occasionally borrow these blessings from our secular efforts and do a small project for God, and then hand them back to practical uses until another “God project” comes along. But, whether it is evangelism or teaching or giving or singing or administrating or hospitality or service or whatever, God has built these gifts into our lives to be used for Him on a daily basis.

So, when I look at God’s gifts to me, I have to ask myself, “How am I using them on a regular basis, in a deliberate way for Jesus?”

I am a teacher. How am I deliberately using my gift of teaching each week to bring glory to His name?
I am a healer. Does my healing bring as much satisfaction to God as it does to me?
Am I stealing God’s glory?
Am I hoarding God’s money?
Am I hiding God’s salvation as I utilize His gifts each day?
Am I an evangelist afraid to evangelize?
Am I a mentor unwilling to take the time to mentor?

These questions must be asked.

What deliberate steps must I take so that the gifts God worked into my life will now work out of my life for Him instead of me?

One deliberate step may snowball into incredible ministry---John Michael simply committed to disciple one student for two months.

Dear Father,
You have so blessed me, over and over, and these blessings should flow through me to those you love. Help me to be deliberate and faithful.
In Christ,
Amen

I'm Fine

2012-01-03T09:38:00.000-08:00

“…there should be no division in the body, but that its parts should have equal concern for each other. If one part suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honored, every part rejoices with it” (1 Corinthians 12:25-26, NIV 1984).

"Now that we are finished taking care of me, how are you doing, Doc?"

"I'm fine, John."

"I worry about you --- so many patients, some of them so difficult."

"I'm fine; it's what I do."

"I know; I know; but I'm still worried about you. I tell you what: you pray for me and I'll pray for you."

“I’m fine” is pretty much my answer when patients or colleagues ask me how I am. “I’m fine” whether or not my home is imploding or my kid is in jail or my debts are greater than my income or my stomach pain makes me think of pancreatic cancer.

When I think about my reasons for being so reserved in sharing life’s difficulties, I realize that some of this is good. There is something noble about walking into the storm without flinching. No one respects a whiner. If I can’t handle my own difficulties, how can I manage those of my patients? As William Osler said in his valedictory address at the University of Pennsylvania in 1889, “Even with disaster ahead and ruin imminent, it is better to face them with a smile, and with head erect, than to crouch at their approach.”

But nobility is not the whole picture. We may face our challenges bravely, but we often live in pain. That pain must be dealt with, must be managed and must be used for the glory of God. How do we do so and maintain our Osler-like “Aequanimitas?” Though we can pretend not to hurt, we cannot not hurt in this life. We will all be fine ultimately but we are often not fine presently.

The only good way to bear our pain is to share our pain. We need not do so with each of our patients and colleagues but we must share our pain with someone. Certainly we must share it with God; our Lord clearly understands suffering and stands with his pierced hands outstretched to take us in. Our Lord is ready to hear our grief and hold us close.

We also need to share our pain with others, in spite of our hesitancy. Some of us can do so with a spouse, others with a pastor and others with a small group or a close personal friend. Each of us needs to bare our souls to someone and open ourselves to their love and wisdom. Those of us who have no one to trust should deliberately seek with God to find them and begin a life of sharing; not only for ourselves but also for the good of those we serve.

We are Christians. “I’m fine” is ultimately true, no matter this world’s complexities. But we will do a better job of making it fine for others if we open up to a chosen few in the Lord’s presence and share our deep concerns.

Dear Father,
Let me not be alone with my pain. Help me with humility to share my struggles with you and with others you have chosen for me.
Amen

Deliberately Seeking

2011-12-27T05:25:00.000-08:00

And Elisha prayed, “O Lord, open his eyes so he may see.” Then the Lord opened the servant’s eyes and he looked and saw the hills full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha. 2 Ki 6:17

I was still sleepy from jet lag when the first patient showed up at my home. The king of Abraka heard that an American specialist was coming to care for his people, so he brought his wife to me the day after I arrived in Nigeria. I examined her: drowsy, lymph nodes enlarged, low-grade fevers---and I had no idea what was wrong with her. So, I pulled out my tropical medicine textbook and flipped through the pages until I found a picture of a patient who fit her description: trypanosomiasis. Up until that moment, I had not even known how to spell the word, but I was convinced by the picture that this was her diagnosis. Unfortunately, the missionary doctors and local Nigerian physicians told me that African sleeping sickness had never been reported in their area. But, it was the only diagnosis I could come up with so I plunged in to find the trypanosomes. I aspirated fluid from an enlarged node and spent an hour under the microscope searching for the parasites I had never seen---nada.

Then I had a surgery colleague excise a lymph node and I squeezed the juice onto a slide. I looked and looked and looked for thirty minutes or more, eyes burning, head aching, nothing, nothing, nothing, and then I saw a lymphocyte move, then another, then another, then a flagella, then the whole parasite, then scores of parasites. We had uncovered a new endemic focus of trypanosomiasis, beginning with the queen’s lymph node. It had taken me hours and multiple attempts to find the first parasite, but by the time we had published our series of 67 cases, I could almost spot them moving without a microscope.

During his private practice years, Dr. Walt Larimore, coauthor with William Peel of The Saline Solution, was deliberate about seeking God’s presence in his practice. On each patient chart, he would place a sticker: WIGD, reminding him to ask himself, “What Is God Doing?” before he entered the examining room. Walt knew that he was not alone in his concern for each patient’s well being; God, too, was acting in each office visit. Each patient encounter was for Walt a “divine encounter.” Over and over again Dr. Larimore saw God working in his patients’ lives because he was deliberately seeking God in action.

Most of us go through our busy days and never see God in action because we only casually look for Him. If I had only casually looked for trypanosomes, that queen would have died and I would not have received my chicken from the king. Seeing God’s presence in our practices takes our seeking His presence in our practices, deliberately seeking. It’s the same in our homes and the same in our churches and the same in our times of social interaction. Those trypanosomes were there whether I saw them or not but I could not interact with them to help my patient without finding them. God is at work in all of our encounters and we are much less likely to join in his plan if we do not recognize His presence.

Do we pray every morning that God will allow us to partner with Him in His plan?

Do we pray outside each patient door that He will make that patient whole and that we may be a part of that healing?

Do we listen for His lead for speaking words of witness?

Most of us want to be used by God in our work. Are we daily, desperately seeking how he will use us?

Dear God,
Use me for thy plan and for thy glory. Let me seek your presence with each patient, colleague and friend.
Amen

It's All About the Money

2011-12-19T14:43:00.001-08:00

“Come, all you who are thirsty, come to the waters; and you who have no money, come, buy and eat!” (Isaiah 55:1, NIV 1984).

My daughter is a nurse in the local Intensive Care unit. She called me one night, hopping mad, “You won’t believe what this doctor told me!”

“Who was it?"

“I’m not going to tell you, but I called him to come see this patient who had arrested today and the family wanted to talk to him. He told me that he had already seen that patient once today and that the insurance wouldn’t reimburse him to come back again.”

“What did you say to him?”

“Nothing at first, but when he started griping about our healthcare system and reimbursement, I told him, ‘It’s not all about the money.’”

Gutsy nurse, my daughter, sort of like her mother.

I used to make a whole lot more money practicing medicine than I do now. I actually miss it—not the hours; I still work the hours—I miss the money. Having lots of money was cool: what I could do with it, the security it wrapped around me. Honest—I liked having money. As a Christian doctor, I used much of it for the good of others and for God’s work. That was cool too. It hurts to see it diminish.

My personal experience, and my understanding in observing my colleagues, is not that most doctors want a lot more money. My understanding about Christian doctors and money is two-fold:

A little more is always welcome, and

It is very difficult to fall back from where we have been, give up a financial level to which we have grown accustomed, lose a level of security with which we have been comfortable---and this is what is happening to most doctors these days. Many doctors feel strained and anxious as they watch the loss. This is natural; this is me; but it is not necessarily Christian.

I learned the beauty of reducing my finances and losing my security when I served on the mission field. On the mission field, time and time again, we found ourselves caught up in circumstances in which our security and resources were absolutely inadequate to overcome the challenges. And, time and time again, God came through----and when we were swept up in His deliverance, our faith grew enormously. I reached the point in Nigeria where I could face a dangerous impossibility and smile, watching for my Lord to arrive. I now am forced to relearn this in America, as my practice income is reducing---and it is really good for me.

God wants our love, our trust and our obedience. We hardly know what trust is as long as we can depend on ourselves. Obedience is cheap when it only costs us our extras. Love is shallow until we fall desperately into His arms and watch the Lord of the universe work out His love for us.

We as Christian doctors with our involuntary income reductions are now being blessed by the opportunity to become dependent again. It hurts, but there is glory in the pain if with it we learn again to turn from self-sufficiency to God-dependency.

Dear God,
Thank you for driving us into Your arms by freeing us from our securities.
Amen

The Power to Heal

2011-12-13T09:24:00.000-08:00

"One day as he was teaching, Pharisees and teachers of the law, who had come from every village of Galilee and from Judea and Jerusalem, were sitting there. And the power of the Lord was there for him to heal the sick." (Luke 5:17, NIV 1984).

She wheeled in on her rolling walker, much younger than I but more world-worn. In spite of her difficult health history, she was cheerful. Thus far, she had defeated three separate cancers and had watched a number of her family members die from an obvious genetic tendency toward malignancy.

I wondered.

“Thank the Lord you are doing well,” I said. “I’m curious. Do you credit the Lord or the doctors more for bringing you through all of these cancers?”

“I have to say the Lord,” she replied.

“You are absolutely right.”

As doctors we certainly have paid our dues with long hours of study and work. Most of us devote ourselves to the healing and wholeness of our patients, sacrificing our time and emotional energy for their good. Our time, our skills, our efforts often coincide with our patients doing well, allowing us to feel good about the work. This is as it should be but carries with it a danger.

As Christian doctors we thrive on words of appreciation for what we do, so much so that we might at times forget that we are but servants of the King. The design that holds our patients together and helps them heal is a blessing from the King. The skills we possess come to us through the same design and through wonderful opportunity provided by the King. The science that we use to aid us in our mission is but the creation of the King, uncovered to relieve the suffering of those He loves. The breath of healing that comes to some and not to others is the breath of the King, blown in response to purpose and prayer. We certainly have a tremendous privilege to work with the Great Physician. With that privilege comes the responsibility to fight any temptation that would have us steal his crown of glory and put it on our own heads.

Dear God,
Thank you so much for the privilege of sharing in Your work to help those whom You love. Help us never attempt to steal Your glory.
Amen

A Glimpse into the Darkness

2011-12-06T07:23:00.000-08:00

2Cor. 4:6 “For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ.”

1John 1:5b “God is light; in him there is no darkness”

In 1994 I was doing medical relief work in crisis areas of the world. That was the year of the genocide in Rwanda. My task was to reopen the central hospital in Kigali, the capital city. The massacres continued after we arrived. It was one of the darkest times in human history – neighbor killing neighbor, simply due to tribal differences.

We worked long hours treating the injuries and diseases of war. The hospital where we worked had also suffered damage with no running water or electricity. Fighting continued in and around the city. Nearby firefights were not unusual.

One night about 4 AM, I was caring for critically injured patients when the sights and sounds of small arms and mortar fire stole my attention. The flashes were coming through an artillery shell hole in the wall of the hospital ward. As I watched and listened, I experienced something I never wish to face again. It was as though the presence of God withdrew and the horrors of darkness, disease and death overwhelmed me. It lasted only a moment, but far too long. The dread and despair were more than I could have managed, had God not quickly restored His presence and peace. I live with this memory of darkness and hopelessness in a world apart from God, and am now all the more thankful for God’s common grace in our world and His specific grace in my life.

Dr. Gene Rudd

For most of us there exists complacency in our lives regarding the presence of God. Except for formal worship experiences and brief times of devotion, we assume that God is present and keep that assumption from affecting our daily operations. Most of us wake up, walk through our day and fall to sleep at night with a background assumption that God is near; but we don’t intentionally seek him or actively acknowledge his presence---unless we need to cry out for help. We live as if: when life is good, God is resting; when life goes horribly wrong, we need to wake him up to fix a world that has missed his inactivity. Little do we appreciate his constant common grace with which “he upholds the universe by the word of his power”. (Heb 1:3 ESV)

Militant atheists and skeptics declare that there can be no God with such suffering as Rwanda in the world. We listen with sympathy to their argument, disbelieving but unable to disagree with conviction.

Only occasionally does God remove His hand long enough---in the destructive impossibility of an addiction, in the horror of a genocide or in the realization of our own personal sin---for us to see the world as it would be if God should take His hand completely away, if He should remove His common grace and let us slide to hell on our own. A new Creation is coming through the great Redemptive story, but it has not yet arrived and, presently, in both Rwanda and the US, our world is absolutely dependent on His sustaining hand.

Dear God,

Thank you for holding your creation together until you come again to make it new. Thank you for your light when the darkness closes in.

Amen

My Time

2011-11-29T05:15:00.000-08:00

Therefore we do not lose heart…for our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal. 2 Cor 4:16-18.

Frank is an anesthesiologist in town, in practice for many years. I visited his home this week to care for his father-in-law, bed-ridden from a malignancy. Frank’s wife, Becky, has been caring for her father night and day for over four months. There has been no break in their responsibility.

I knew that Frank had a vacation planned this week so I asked him how it was going.

“You’re looking at it,” he said. He grinned and added, “And my last vacation, I spent taking care of our six week old grandson while my daughter took a trip and Becky cared for her father.”

“Man, that’s rough,” I said.

“No, it’s not, “ he replied. “It’s just my time.”

All of us are either presently in “my time” or will someday get there.

“My time”, as Frank uses it, is just the opposite of the words spoken. “My time” to Frank means “my time to have no time for me” and “my time to take on the burden of life”, “my time to be responsible and endure until it is over.”

Many of the rest of us are in the midst of that just now:

“My time to care for aged parents” or

“My time to suffer the illnesses I see in my patients” or

“My time to be slammed financially” or

“My time to be worn out and alone” or

“My time to cry in the night for my kids” or

“My time for malpractice suit”

“My time” assumes that sometime even doctors get to be human, get to fit into the chaos of a fallen world. ”My time” asserts that “It’s okay; I understand that this is part of life” and “I will make it through the best I can”.

“My time” as a Christian means even more.

”My time” as a Christian means:

“It’s my time, but I am not alone.”

“It’s my time, and God has a purpose in this that is greater than my pain”

“It’s my time, and God is working out his purpose through me.”

“It’s my time, and let the world see how a Christian does it.”

This is what it means for Frank and Becky; and when “my time” comes, I pray that it means the same for me.

Dear Father,
Thank you for leaving us in the world as part of the world to carry out your plan. Give me patience and trust when “my time” comes.
Amen

Onward

2011-11-22T08:10:00.000-08:00

Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us. Heb 12:1” Ex 3: 13-14

I recently had the privilege of participating in a ministry trip to Kenya with Medical Education International, a mission arm of CMDA. Dr. James Smith, last year’s recipient of CMDA’s Servant of Christ award, was our team leader. At 75 he has more physical and mental energy than I could drum up when I was forty. Three to four times a year, he leads teams of Christian doctors throughout the world, funding his travel with employment at the Portland VA 1-2 days a month. He just won’t quit.

Alfred Buxton once wrote of his fellow missionary, C.T. Studd, “From him I learned that God’s idea of a saint is a person not primarily concerned with his own sanctification; God’s saint is 50% a soldier.”

Do we really get this about our lives? As a Christian doctor do I really understand that “God’s saint is 50% a soldier”---that God has kept me in this world primarily to fight for his Kingdom; or, more accurately, to let him fight through me? If I really believe this is true, how well do my actions measure up to my belief?

As soldiers, God has varied assignments for us at different times in our lives, but we never are given the opportunity to resign from his command or forsake his battle. Prior to C.T. Studd’s death in the Congo, Buxton sent to him these simple lines:

“Let the victors when they come,
When the forts of folly fall,
Find thy body near the wall.”
(from CT Studd: Cricketer & Pioneer by Norman Grubb)

These lines proved true for CT Studd. I suspect they will prove true for Dr. James Smith and countless others I have known. How about me? Will I quit the battle too soon or will I take the steps to make these words true for my life?

Dear God,
Let me join in your battle, not mine; let me never give up your fight. Let it be you, not my dreams, who call me forward.
Amen

Nutshell Faith

2011-11-15T05:27:00.000-08:00

Moses said to God, “Suppose I go to the Israelites and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they will ask me, ‘What is his name?’ Then what will I tell them?”

God said to Moses, “I Am Who I Am.” Ex 3: 13-14

CT Studd spent his life as a missionary in China and the Congo. Near the end of Studd’s life, African believers themselves began to hear God’s call to become missionaries among distant tribes. One such man was Zamu, a small man with a chronic foot injury. When Zamu was about to leave on his journey, the local Caucasian missionary was doubtful of his ability to survive.
“What about your foot, Zamu?”
“God is, White Lady.”
“But the food is so different, down there---no palm oil or salt.”
“God is, White Lady.”
“You might starve or be killed.”
“God is.”
“What about your wife?”
“She will accompany me, White Lady. God is.”
(from CT Studd: Cricketer & Pioneer by Norman Grubb)

I’m old enough that I prefer to pack my faith in little nutshells so I can remind myself readily what life is all about. Such is this brief statement from a crippled man of faith as I face my own questions and trials: God is.

What about life’s tragedies? ---God is.
What if I fail in my dreams for life? ---God is.
What if I fail in God’s mission for my life? ---God is.
What about my children? ---God is.
What about my finances? ---God is
What about my sin? ---God is.
What about my death? ---God is.

There are few questions in life that cannot be answered victoriously by these two words.
Donald Hankey once wrote, “True religion is betting one’s life there is a God.”
I’m making that bet. And I’ll carry around this nutshell to remind me that I have won.

Dear God,

Help me to be constantly aware that you are and that you love me.
Amen

Infinite Value

2011-11-09T05:19:00.000-08:00

While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Rom 5:8

“During this deployment, a couple of times a day, I will say to a soldier, ‘Have you heard of the Christian doctrine of Imago Deo? So far none has. They give me a funny look and wonder where I am going with this. Then I tell them that this doctrine states that God made man in His own image. Therefore, they are of infinite worth and value. Then I say, ‘That's why I am here, because you are valuable’. In our culture, where value is based on performance and measured by power, position, wealth and fame, most young people have no sense of value. For many, when they hear my words, it is like pouring water on dry sponges.”

James Anderson MD
Serving in Afghanistan

Thank God for the men and women who are willing to serve as soldiers and willing to sacrifice life, limb and family to make my loved ones safe. God be with them and bring them home safely, for they are indeed of infinite value.

Just so, the cocaine addicted, irresponsible patient who came today seeking pain pills is of infinite value. It seems almost sacrilegious to place him on the same page as our military heroes----or maybe it just seems so because I still look at human value based on attributes and contribution. Imago Deo is not a privilege limited to those who deserve our admiration or those who sacrifice their happiness for others. If it were, I might well be left off the list. Paraphrasing C S Lewis, “I have never met a mere mortal.” Every patient I see is as loved and as much valued by God as my son and my daughters and these soldiers, though I do not have the eyes of God and cannot understand.

Every night I pray for the safety of our soldiers and pray that God will bring them home. Every morning I pray for my patients, that God’s love may touch them through my life and that they may be healed. Imago Deo, the image of God, every one of them, every one of us.

Dear God,
I am not worthy and yet, like every man and woman I meet, you love me.
Thank you,
Amen

Chasing Our Rabbits

2011-11-01T05:06:00.000-07:00

I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Php 3:12

Dwayne had quit his practice and was working in Emergency rooms three days a week. He had been an excellent pulmonary doctor with a great reputation, a busy practice and was my favorite pulmonary consultant, so I asked him why he made the change.

“I nearly lost my family last year, going for the gold---You know, I got to all my son’s baseball games this summer.”

This past Sunday my pastor shared Rev Fred Craddock’s story of the time he visited his niece and was warming himself by a fire one Georgia winter. Craddock watched with contentment a large greyhound dog lying before the fire with two toddlers resting their heads on his back. He then struck up a conversation with the dog.

I said to the dog, “Are you still racing?”

“No,” he replied

“Well, what was the matter? Did you get too old to race?”

“No, I still had some race in me.”

“Well, what then? Did you not win?”

“I won over a million dollars for my owner.”

“Well, what was it? Bad treatment?”

“Oh no,” the dog said. “They treated us royally when we were racing.”

“Did you get crippled?”

“No.”

“Then why?” Craddock pressed, “Why aren’t you racing?”

“I quit.”

“You quit?”

“Yes,” he said, “I quit.”

“Why did you quit?”

“I quit because after all that running and running and running and running, I found out the rabbit I was chasing wasn’t even real.”

Most of us as doctors go chasing after rabbits that aren’t real at some time in our lives. Some of us may still be at it. All of us need to check out the rabbit that has us running. We don’t all need to quit our present positions and take three day a week jobs in the ER, but each of us does need to discover, with the Lord and our families, the life goals that really matter---and then run like the wind to reach them.

Dear God,
Help me look at my life and run after only those things that really matter to you.
Amen

Defending God

2011-10-25T10:22:00.000-07:00

I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes. Rom 1:16

I was late for the conference and arrived after all but two had left.

One of the doctors called me in, “You’re spiritual; you can come in and hear this.”

He then proceeded with a red-faced rant against Christians.

“When I was operated on, the last thing I remember, as I was going under and couldn’t protect myself, was this surgeon leaning over me and asking God to be with him as he did his thing. That surgeon had no right to exploit my weakness under anesthesia to pray to his God over me, just to make himself feel good.”

I wasn’t smart or quick enough to defend my faith, so I responded, “I think it’s best for Christian doctors to ask permission when they pray with a patient.” And then added, “But you’ve done well, so I suspect God did help your surgeon accomplish his task.”

We spent another twenty minutes discussing our responsibility toward the poor and each of our efforts in that direction.

His face cooled down during our conversation and he left saying, “I used to hate all Christians but some of you are changing my mind.”

As Christians we are tempted at times to defend the Creator of the Universe. His reputation depends on us. If we don’t argue correctly, the Alpha and Omega might somehow lose---and our reputation loses with him. Such a compulsion to defend our faith is contrary to Jesus’ approach to the skeptics. He never tried to out-reason his opponents; he never argued folks to salvation. He just laid out the truth of life, loved his opponents and then acted with the power of God. Making sense was not his chief goal.

As Oswald Chambers put it:
“If you try and weave a conception of God out of Jesus Christ’s presentation of Him, you will find that God is flatly contradicted in the natural world. God is the only being who can afford to be misunderstood; He deliberately stands aside and lets himself be slandered and misrepresented; he never vindicates himself.”

We shouldn’t blame the skeptics for their confusion about our faith. Our walk with Christ doesn’t make a lot of earthly sense, so it’s hard for us to reason folks to our side. But we should not lose heart and become anxious when our words seem ineffective; God is at work. As Karl Barth put it in his commentary on Romans, “Anxiety concerning the victory of the Gospel is meaningless…God does not need us. Indeed, if He were not God, He would be ashamed of us…The assumption that Jesus is the Christ is, in the strictest sense of the word, an assumption, void of any content that can be comprehended by us and must be apprehended in the Spirit.”

God is mostly in the business of transforming rather than convincing. We as Christian doctors should certainly know the Gospel well; we should live what we believe, speak what we know in love and then let God stand up for himself and let him do the business of changing lives.

Dear God,

Let me know well the truth of the Gospel and be ready to answer when your Spirit leads, and let me trust you with both my reputation and yours.

Amen

Running with kindness

2011-10-18T07:40:00.000-07:00

Be kind and compassionate to one another ... Eph 4:32

It had been a difficult week but finally it was Friday. Each day I had been overbooked and had events scheduled with family or church that compressed my evening work hours. Consequently I had rushed through each day and each patient like a Formula 1 driver. But I got it done.

As I was sitting at my workstation, cleaning up records on my computer, my favorite medical assistant, Gwyn, dropped off some papers to sign and then paused at the door as she was leaving.

“You know, Dr.___, you made me cry today.”

Time pressure for a doctor is inevitable. Hurting people within that pressure is not.

Most of us as Christian doctors see our mission as service and witness to patients. When I am at work, I focus on that mission and pour myself into it, even when my work some days seems more like survival school than ministry. When I am hard pressed and focused, I sometimes forget those who serve with me: my staff, my colleagues---my family. I sometimes, though unaware, use them for what they can accomplish rather than see them as partners in God’s ministry and persons who need God’s touch. I sometimes forget that my witness for Christ touches them every day, that my actions will bring them closer to or drive them farther from the Lord by the way I show them love, that my influence with them is far more pervasive than my influence with the patients I see every few weeks or months.

When we find ourselves caught in an overwhelming, time pressured day, we should stop, pray and deliberately tell ourselves to be kind to all of those who work with us and for us, especially to our families.

No one who wants to show Christ to the world should ever hear, “Dr___, you made me cry today.”

Dear Father,
When the pressure is on, please remind me of your love for those around me--- and make me be kind.
Amen

All Okay

2011-10-11T09:35:00.000-07:00

Because of the Lord’s great love, we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. Lam 3: 22-23.

I woke up and it was all okay. I knew that many of my colleagues and patients had been through similar procedures and awakened to bad news. But not me, not this time.

“Thank you, Lord, for me and for my family. Please bless those who have not done as well.”

A week earlier my doctor had surprised me with a call that told me I was anemic with iron deficiency. I knew at my age that this message often led to the discovery of a GI malignancy. I knew this might flip my present concerns upside down and make all my plans to fix things at work and home meaningless. But, for some reason, whatever the outcome, it was all okay. Actually, for One reason it was all okay.

There is a beautiful passage in Corrie ten Boom’s The Hiding Place where she describes an event from childhood when she cried to her father about her fear that he might die.

Her father wisely reminded her, “Corrie, when you and I go to Amsterdam, when do I give you the ticket?”

“Why, just before we get on the train.”

“Exactly. And our wise Father in heaven knows when we’re going to need things too. Don’t run ahead of him, Corrie.”

I don’t know why I responded differently in this experience from my usual approach to major concerns. In most of my trials my emotions fluctuate like the third chapter of Lamentations, alternating between hope and despair. I’m suppose, if I really had suffered the cancer, I may have been more Lamentations-like. But, for some reason, in this trial, I remained at peace, even as I imagined my future crashing around me. For some reason, I knew that God had my ticket ready if I needed it.

Years of experience tell me that my faith is not that great in times of trial. I usually pray desperately, pursue my own plans to fix things, fail and then let God pick up the pieces. It was refreshing to go though a crisis and find myself leaning not on my own faith but on his faithfulness.

Dear Father,

Thank you for your faithfulness, regardless of my state of mind.
Amen

Friends

2011-10-04T06:53:00.000-07:00

The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit. Ps 34:18

I prayed with Freddy Sharp today. That’s not his real name and I don’t pray with all my patients, but today God’s Spirit set it up.

I take care of serious medical issues for Freddy and they are under control at this time, but Freddy’s wife left him this week and his alcohol problem flared up and he had no home to which he could return.

“I was up all night praying,” he said. “And this morning I was walking past a half-way house I used long ago and someone I knew was in the yard and invited me to stay with him. Just like that, God gave me a place to stay. This is hard, Doc. I need for you to pray for me.”

“Would you like for me to pray with you right now, Freddy?”

After we prayed, Freddy wiped his eyes. “I know you’re my doctor, but I think of you as more than a doctor. I think of you as my friend.”

What a privilege to be friends with the brokenhearted.

As doctors we are provided that opportunity more than most. The question is, “Are we ready for it?” Do we know what it takes to let God “set it up”?

Certainly, it takes seeking. We are unlikely to find such opportunities without seeking them. Do we pray every day for God to let us be his touch for the broken?

It takes awareness. In the midst of a very busy day, do we repeatedly return to the Father so he can remind us that our work is his ministry, that each patient visit is his divine appointment?

It takes authenticity. Do our patients know the truth: that we are children of the King and ambassadors to their brokenness? Do they feel comfortable approaching us with spiritual issues?

It takes unscheduled time. No one reaches out to us spiritually in a time slot that fits our plan for the day.

It takes the Spirit of God. Nothing we can do on our own matters. Nothing we do with His Spirit can fail.

Dear Father,
My work is not my business. My work is your business. Let my life fit into your plan this day, so that the lost may be brought home to you, the broken made whole in you and you may be glorified.
Amen

The Promise

2011-09-27T12:41:00.000-07:00

As long as it is day, we must do the work of him who sent me. Night is coming when no man can work. Jn 9:4

Yesterday, I was surrounded by the broken of our inner city, as I had committed to a Saturday of ministry. Just before our work began, an African American church deacon prayed his heart out to the Lord. One of his prayer statements struck me and stuck in my brain.
“Thank you, God, that we woke up to a day that we have never seen before and---and the end of this day--- will never see again.”

When Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the brilliant German theologian and passionate follower of Christ, came for a lecture series to Union Theological Seminary just before the second World War, he sought a worship experience that might bring him closer to Christ. He did not find it in the great white churches in New York City; he found it in the African American churches in Harlem. Just so, many of us have found that our African American colleagues can often speak truth in passionately succinct ways that simultaneously skewer both the heart and mind. It was that way for me that Saturday.

“We woke up to a day we have never seen before”
---What promise God hands us each new day---what opportunity.

“And---at the end of this day---will never see again.”
---What responsibility comes with the promise---what finality as the day closes---what judgment over a day wasted or one well spent for our Lord.

Do I endure my days to get them done or do I charge into each with God at my side, aware of the opportunity and confident of his ability to accomplish it?

Dear God,
Let me live up to the promise of each new day.
Amen

The Handoff

2011-09-20T12:47:00.000-07:00

If only for this life we have hoped in Christ, we are to be pitied more than all men. I Cor 15: 19

Josie has been my patient for many years. Her brother called me yesterday. “I think we are going to lose her in the next few days.”

“I’m so sorry, Randy. You certainly have done everything you could for her as a brother.”

And I had done all I could for her as a doctor over years of steadily progressive illness. I love Josie, but I mostly feel relief at the end of her suffering and, to be honest, at the hours of work that her illness near the end of life has brought me.

As I prayed for her this morning, I handed her off to Jesus. And then I realized that I had done very little to hand her off to Jesus.

Do we really believe what we profess?

Do we know that each of our patients will settle in the arms of Jesus when they die, or meet a dark eternity?

Do we love our patients?

If we believe what we profess, do we care what happens to our patients on the other side of death?

Are we afraid?

If we believe what we profess and care for the patients we love, does the fear of rejection, or the fear of seeming foolish, or the fear that our own hope is just an illusion keep us from introducing our patients to the only hope that lasts forever?

Are we just too busy?

I don’t know whether it is a failure of belief, or a failure of love, or fear or just busyness; but I realized today that I have hoped Josie toward heaven more than I have helped hand her to Jesus.

Dear God,
Change me. For the sake of the patients I love.
Amen.

The Work of Prayer

2011-09-13T06:57:00.001-07:00

For the eyes of the Lord are on the righteous and his ears are attentive to their prayers. I Pe 3:12

I visited my Aunt Eunice today. She’s 98 years old and stuck in a nursing home and I see her far too infrequently. She’s the aunt who took me to her church and anointed me with oil when I was one year hold, failing from a degenerative hydrocephalus that all the doctors and other family members had decided was hopeless.

I felt compelled today to visit her and tell something that I don’t recall saying before.

“Aunt Eunice, I hope you know that anything good that has come from my life is a direct result of your faith and prayer.”

“Anything good that has come from my life is a direct result of your faith and your prayers.”

Can you say that about anyone? Have you said it to them? Should you tell them now?

Can anyone say that about you?

Have your faith and prayers for someone resulted in God doing good things through his/her life?

Do we pray big prayers so that God can do great things through others?

Are we willing to do the work that such prayer requires---not the sore knees kind of work, but the work it takes to partner with God in completing his plan? Aunt Eunice not only prayed and had faith; she took me to that church where I was anointed with oil. That required time and risk of failure and potential family conflict.

Do I pray that way for my patients? For the family member who is hooked on drugs? For the arrogant colleague who needs the Lord? For the poor I pass by every day? For the young doctor I should be mentoring?

Will God do his great work someday through someone because I trusted and prayed and worked like Aunt Eunice did for me?

Dear God,
Help me to get seriously active in prayer and through prayer.
Amen

Mission Notes

2011-09-06T06:22:00.000-07:00

For in him we live and move and have our being. Acts 17:28

As is so often the case when we serve God in ministry, we are blessed beyond our blessing to others. This past week I helped with an inner city mission. Prior to the ministry we enjoyed a short time of worship and were led in singing several songs that I had not heard before. In one of these songs the chorus repeated, “Can’t nobody live without Jesus.” Those words have not since let me go.

“Can’t nobody live without Jesus.” Certainly this is true for homeless alcoholics who have nothing, but is it true for me?

If it’s true for me, it speaks to me of eternal life. I certainly can’t live past my grave without the Cross and His resurrection.

If it’s true for me, it says something about my daily walk through this life. Where do I find the strength to endure? Where do I find peace when my world is in turmoil? Where do I turn when I struggle with the character issues of anger, integrity, sexual desire, greed and pride?

“Can’t nobody live without Jesus.”

If it’s true for me, it says something about my purpose in living, about the goal of my relationships, about my witness to the living presence of Jesus, the Christ .

“Can’t nobody live without Jesus.” Do I live like it’s true for me?

Dear God,
Don’t let me try to live without Jesus, not today, not tomorrow.
Amen

None of Us

2011-08-30T05:15:00.000-07:00

I pray also for those who will believe in me through your message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. I have given them the glory that you gave me; that they may be one as we are one: I in them and you in me. Jn 17: 20-23

We gathered in that room as doctors who had worked together on an overseas mission for years. We met again to plan and pray. We knew each other, in part. Jessie spoke up as we shared, “I need for you to pray about a situation I have at home that may effect my involvement in the next mission. My oldest son has a drug problem. He was doing well and working; but recently he crashed and quit his job. We need to support him again as he tries to start over.”

There was a moment of silence in the room; then, one by one, each of the seven mission members shared his/her story: a child, or sister or brother or spouse who was hurting badly and needed committed time and resources.

None of us is whole.
I am confident if Jessie’s concern had been a personal failure or broken dream, the same dynamic would have occurred. Each person in that room could have related his or her own.

None of us is whole, alone.

But we are not alone. We have the Church and God is present.

Within the community of believers we share our hurts and flaws. The Body encourages and heals and places us back into God’s army with healing wounds that would have destroyed a man or woman alone.

And we have Christ in us, the Christ who uses our brokenness as a shepherd’s crook to draw us closer to him---and in doing so, molds us stronger than we ever were before our wounds.

None of us is whole, alone. But we are not alone.

Praise you, Lord. I am not alone.

Does Prayer Work?

2011-08-23T06:53:00.000-07:00

The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective. James 5:16

I had been out of town all week and had not seen my precious granddaughters in a long while. My wife was planning a big dinner for Monday night to get us all together and I discovered that it was my night to cover the clinic for the uninsured. I really wanted to be home with my family. On the way to work I thought out loud, “Wouldn’t it be wonderful if they cancelled my clinic tonight.”

About 11:00 that morning I received a call from the clinic letting me know that for some unusual reason no patients had signed up that night, so they were cancelling the clinic. “All right! Thank you, Lord!”

On the way to my car that evening I stumbled across the thought, ”Did God cancel that clinic because I wanted him to?” I winced at the possibility. That’s far more responsibility than I want.

Wouldn’t it be great if God answered all our wishes, especially the ones that were really, really important? It was great to be at home with my granddaughters that night, but do I really want a God who pops up like a genie to grant my requests? I can only imagine the ripple effect that my wish produced on those patients not coming to clinic. Only God knows and I do not want that responsibility.

What does this wish-granting dynamic tell me about prayer---about begging God to give me what I want for me or those I love? What if I pray for something, and God grants it and that messes up His plan for someone else? I can’t have a sunny day for my church picnic and our local farmer get the rain he needs at the same time. Only God can sort this out, so perhaps I should just shut up and let God do what he wants without my input.

But Jesus prayed; Jesus prayed to the God of the Universe, not to a genie in the bottle. And Jesus tells us to pray.

Jesus taught us to pray in Matthew 6: 9-13. And we know the prayers of David in Psalm 51: 7-12, Psalm 23, Psalms 100, Ps 139, the prayers in James 5 and the prayer of Isaiah 6:1-8. And we know from the Bible that it is right to cry out from the depths of our hearts with our greatest desires, even if we don’t know how they fit into God’s plan---Jesus did in the Garden. We just need to offer those prayers in the same way Jesus did in Luke 22:42. I can’t go wrong if I pray these prayers. Why not take seven days this week and pray each of them, and two on Sunday? If I use these prayers as my model, I need not worry about messing up God’s best plan and I am more likely to recognize my place within it.

Dear God,

I ask for what my heart cries out; but please, please let your will be done.

Amen

Shared Suffering

2011-08-16T05:04:00.000-07:00

But rejoice insofar as you share Christ’s sufferings, that you may also rejoice and be glad when his glory is revealed. I Pet 4: 13

He was a tough old soldier. He had been through hell in one war and was going through hell with his illness now. Even the morphine was not fully controlling his pain.

After we had finished our medical business, he said to me, “Do you know how I can bear all of this now?”

He then showed me the screen saver on his cell phone. It was an isolated cross on a hill with glorious light behind it.

“What I’m going through now is nothing compared to what He went through for me.”

Suffering is hard.

When we see it in our patients, we can work philosophically and compassionately through it to help them in their pain; but it gets tougher when we the suffering is our own. Suffering hurts and we can rarely think our way around it when it is laid across our own shoulders. Whether it is a personal illness, a hurting loved one, a failure at work, a failure at home or a shattered dream, rarely can we reason around the philosophy of our own suffering and feel okay. We can become stoic in our thinking, but we cannot find much solace there.

When we suffer, our greatest hope for solace is not through our minds but through our relationships. Rather than holding on to our pain, God would have us share our pain. He would have us share our suffering with each other and He would also have us share our suffering with the One who suffered for us. When we give our pain to Jesus Christ, He holds it up to the Father, blesses it, and then gives it back transformed, with a touch of peace, a touch of purpose and a touch of His glory.

Dear God,
When I suffer, let me do so hand in hand with Jesus.
Amen.

One Glorious Day

2011-08-09T05:01:00.000-07:00

For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in Him should have eternal life, and I will raise Him up at the last day. Jn 6: 39.

I walked up to the rental car counter in Harlingen, Texas, where I was visiting a wonderful Christian Family Medicine residency program at Valley Baptist Medical Center. As I handed the agent my license, my phone rang out loudly with the ringtone of a Christian song, “O Glorious Day”. I was embarrassed, answered as quickly as I could, completed my call and then concluded my rental car transaction. As she handed me the key, the agent said, “I needed to hear that song. My grandfather just passed away and I miss him so. Thank you.”

The truth of eternal life gives us great hope---we know this world is not enough. And it gives us far more than that. Blaise Pascal put it this way, “It affects our whole life to know whether our soul is mortal or immortal.” If mortal, “the last act is bloody; however fine the rest of the play. They throw earth over your head and it is finished forever.”

Life is either eternal or it isn’t.

God either exists and offers us life with him forever or he doesn’t.

At some time in our life we should commit. Is John 6:39 true or isn’t it?

Our commitment to the proposition of eternal life will not make it true; God does. But our commitment gives us hope and it also lays a foundation that should change every major decision we make on earth.

So many of us commit in our minds to the truth of eternal life but then dis-link it from our decision making this side of eternity. When we do so, our thinking becomes irrational. If life is eternal, it should change what I do with my money; it should change what I do with my time; it should change what I do with my relationships.

God is coming for us “One Glorious Day” and that should make a difference in the decisions I make this day.

Dear God,
Help me to live what I believe. In my confidence of eternal life, let me make earthly decisions that make eternal sense.
Amen

Joyful Work: an Oxymoron?

2011-07-26T07:11:00.000-07:00

Commit your work to the Lord and your plans will be established. Pr 16:3

This morning my father and I visited a wonderful homebound woman who had been a patient with each of us. We carried the bread and wine and shared with her the Lord’s Supper that her health would not allow her to receive in church.

This afternoon another patient of mine called because he could not reach his primary care physician. He had fallen and sustained a compression fracture and was in great pain. I was able to visit him in his home, pray with him and arrange for his proper care.

It was a great day off. It reminded me why I had become a Christian doctor.

The practices of medicine and dentistry are often overwhelming. The sheer number of patients flowing through our examining rooms and operative suites, the dollar bills moving in and out of our hands so fast that we can never be sure whether we are swimming in greed or standing one step away from bankruptcy, the time pressures that tear us away from families we love and work to support: all of these concerns are like a dance floor filled with strangers that hide from us the one we love on the other side of the room.

And yet, sometimes God lets us glimpse that loved one through the crowd; sometimes He lets us see again the vision we once embraced in becoming doctors for Christ. With that vision renewed, at least for today, I can see that the life of a Christian doctor is all about love, all about sacrifice, all about Jesus.

So, what do I need to change about each day I work so that every day I can see that I am living the life to which I have been called?

Dear God,
Help me take a step toward change in my life so that each day I will show more love, more sacrifice and more Jesus.
Amen

Envy

2011-07-19T06:35:00.000-07:00

A heart at peace gives life to the body, but envy rots the bones. Pr 14:30

When I attended my professional society meeting this year, I expected to gain some knowledge of science; I was surprised to gain a bit of knowledge about myself.

On the plane out I sat across the aisle from a colleague in a more lucrative practice than mine who described the fun his expensive life style provided. Oh, what I could do if I had his money.

On the convention shuttle I sat next to a man, younger than I, who was prominent in his field. He spent the ride describing all of his accomplishments and notoriety. Oh, what I could do if I had his fame.

On the first meeting day I received a call from my emotionally labile daughter---she had quit her job and was now unemployed. All of my friends’ children are successful professionals or missionaries. Oh, what I could do if only my family were okay.

Oh, what I could do if I were not who I am.

Envy is horrible. It comes from pride and self-focus; it infects us all, even doctors who seem to have everything. Envy saps the joy from our lives. Envy damages my relationships with those I envy, relationships that God has fashioned to complete His work of redemption.

How can I stamp it out?

I can think of four steps to help drive envy from my own life.

1. Envy is sin. I need to hold it up to God, ask Him to forgive me and remove it from my life.

2. Envy is possessive. I need to surrender those areas of my life where others have better outcomes than I. God, take my money, my fame, my family. Use them as You choose for Your glory.

3. Envy brings amnesia. I need to take time and remember God’s blessings in my life and turn my heart toward gratitude based upon the truth of life.

4. Envy is selfish. I need to pray for God to bless each of those I envy.

Forgiveness, surrender, gratitude and intercessory prayer: God has made me different from all others so that I might bring Him glory. Sometimes I have to work a bit to settle into His plan.

Dear God,
Cleanse me of envy. Help me to live joyfully and purposefully in the form and format You have fashioned.
Amen

Unfocused

2011-07-12T06:36:00.000-07:00

Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith. Heb 12:2

As a doctor I had become wealthy.

It was not what I had planned with God for my life. When I entered medical school as a Christian, it was all for God and those in need. Yet here I was with a huge home, a lake house and expensive vacations. I had scattered breadcrumbs of charity as I traveled, almost like Hansel and Gretel to find my way back to my true purpose eventually. But somewhere along the way, the birds of life had eaten the crumbs and I woke up rich.

Why do so many of us do this? Why are we so busy gathering stuff and losing our way? Enjoying this world is not bad---until we give this world the power to direct our lives.

In the 17th century, Blaise Pascal, the great mathematician and Christian philosopher, wrote a great deal about diversion. He noted that men and women are always busy seeking distractions and diversions so that they might not have to face the truth of life, a truth for which only God has the remedy.

“Being unable to cure death, wretchedness and ignorance, men have decided, in order to be happy, not to think about such things…we run heedlessly into the abyss continually putting something in front of us to stop us from seeing it.” Pensees

This is likely true for those who do not know God through Christ. Why do I spend so much time with diversions?

A great mission leader once quoted a short poem when he visited our church:

“Some people die by water;
Some people die by flames;
But most of us die, bit by bit, playing silly games.”

Dear God,
Keep me focused on You and devoted to Your purpose for my life.
Amen

Today

2011-07-05T07:29:00.000-07:00

This is the day the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it. Ps 118:24

My kids have kids now.

I have a certain amount of wealth and respect, but not enough to be content.
I have fought many battles for God, but can list few great victories.
I seek new mountains to climb, but realize my legs are tired.

As doctors most of us have been living goal oriented lives. We have goals in education, then goals in practice, goals in family, goals in respect, as well as goals in ministry.

We will succeed in many of the goals we pursue and discover that some will never be accomplished. Our lives are a series of bulls-eyes. Many of us live like arrows shot from bows we have fashioned, focused on the targets and ignoring the flight.

In his Pensees, Pascal noted: “Let each of us examine his thoughts: he will find them wholly concerned with the past or the future. We almost never think of the present, and if we do think of it, it is only to see what light it throws on our plans for the future. The present is never our end. The past and present are our means, the future alone our end. Thus we never actually live, but hope to live, and since we are always planning how to be happy, it is inevitable that we should never be so.”

As Christians we are called to live both for the moment and the future.

Within the moment is beauty, relationship with man and God, a partnership with God in His redemptive story; and there is joy. As doctors, we are often living for the future as Pascal describes and miss much of the eternal now that God has planned for us.

We should never forget our future, for there lies our home and that home defines our actions now. But most of us need to slow down and focus on God’s presence and God’s purpose now, within this day. When we do, we will often find the happiness we might otherwise have missed.

Dear God,
Help me to focus on Your presence and purpose in the moment I am living. Help me to be Your touch for the people I see this day.
Amen

The Truth of Blessing

2011-06-28T06:28:00.000-07:00

Once more Jesus put his hands on the man’s eyes. Then his eyes were opened, his sight was restored, and he saw everything clearly. Mk 8: 25.

His cancer had recurred and he was not responding well to the salvage therapy. His tumors had stopped growing but remained stagnant as he was steadily wasting away.

Today was different. He was cheerful and had “fattened up”, five pounds over the past week, eating like a college athlete.

“It’s all God”, he said. “I was praying for God to help me and all of a sudden my smell returned. Three minutes later my taste returned. I’ve been hungry and eating ever since.”

And we had done nothing to change his therapy.

I can think of all kinds of reasons to explain away the supernatural supposition of this man’s experience, all kinds of reasons to underplay its importance and limit its ultimate benefit.

I can throw up all kinds of questions to God about why he would help this man in this way and not help others with their vital pleas.

There are lots of reasonable questions within experiences such as this, lots we will never figure out on this side of heaven.

The truth of life and the truth of prayer is this: God knows, God hears, God can and God acts.

Oswald Chambers once said, “Give God elbow room. Let him come into his universe the way he chooses.”

All kinds of comments and question may rise up when God steps inexplicably into our lives, but sometimes it is best to just, “Shut up and be thankful.”

Dear God,
Let me be so aware of your presence that I accept the truth of your blessings and live a life of thankfulness.
Amen

Sometimes It Costs

2011-06-21T05:06:00.000-07:00

For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. Matt 6:21

She was sent to me for a slowly progressive disease that had used up her insurance as it drained her physically. She was in chronic pain from her illness, but her chief complaint was the pain in her mouth from teeth that had broken off into nubs with swollen red gums.

“I can’t find a dentist in my town who will see me without insurance.”

My brother is a periodontist in private practice who follows Christ and has ties with the dental school, so I called him, hoping that his influence would help get my patient cared for by the students.

“Send her to me,” he said. “If I can remove those teeth and help her, I won’t charge her.”

Sometimes it costs to act like Jesus.

Dear Father,
Help me live what I believe.
Amen

Doing the Impossible

2011-06-14T06:41:00.000-07:00

Jesus looked at them and said, “With man this is impossible, but with God, all things are possible.” Matt 19:26.

I don’t usually get excited about weddings, but last night was different. The daughter of a hard working doctor in south Alabama had been growing up beautifully in her doctor-daughter world until she suffered a brain injury two years ago. A drunken driver had changed her life. For the past two years she and those who love her have lived through times of determination, despair, faith and hard work as she has recovered from the devastating injury.

This wonderful girl and her parents are Christian, so they did not go through it alone. They knew that God was with them. They declared their dependence on His mercy in the final solo of her wedding last night, “Amazing Grace”.

The bride was beautiful. She may have limped ever so slightly as she stepped down from the altar but I have never seen such a victorious smile.

It seems like we have enough on our hands as Christian doctors. Time pressures, business decisions, intense healthcare decision-making, the task of living our faith as we care for our patients---this all seems like plenty to do on this side of heaven---but then we get to do real life as well.

As we seek to work with our Lord in redeeming a broken world, we too are caught up in its brokenness. Both the joys and the severity of life do not just happen to our patients; they happen to us. We don’t just shed tears for the children and spouses of our patients; we shed tears for our own—and we still have the task of serving our Lord every day.

Sometimes I look at all there is to Christian doctor living and say, “It’s just not possible to do it all well.”

It’s certainly not possible, but it’s Christian.

“With God, all things are possible” is true for Christians only because we can do all things, “with God”. And, when we do the impossible with God, as did this doctor, wife and daughter, the whole world takes notice and gives Him glory.

Dear God,
Thank you for your healing touch in this young woman’s life. Help us each day to live the impossible with you.
Amen

Just As I AM

2011-06-07T05:20:00.000-07:00

I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing. Jn 15: 5.

Kyle played the piano in church this Sunday. In his early twenties now, Kyle has had a difficult life, with both his parents dying during his teen years. His piano playing was beautiful to those of us who know him. Kyle has Down’s syndrome. The timing of his notes was a bit irregular, but he hit every key perfectly as he played, “Just as I am, I come.”

The whole point of our lives is coming to God through Jesus. Yet, sometimes I hold back.

I hold back sometimes because I am succeeding in life and feel self-sufficient in taking care of my needs.

I hold back sometime because I am too busy with my own agenda.

I hold back sometimes because I am angry and broken by life and God has not come through.

I hold back sometimes because I choose my sin over my King.

I hold back sometimes because I know I am not worthy to seek His face--- I have let Him down and can’t imagine His welcome.

Every morning, I fight through all these layers of my life and beg my God, “Let me rise up now and meet you!”

It’s the point of my life, the reason I live; and I miss that point too often. This Sunday, Kyle’s piano brought it back home.

Dear God,
Help me rise up from all that keeps me bound to self so that I may walk with you today.
Amen.

Because He Lives

2011-05-31T07:46:00.000-07:00

Death has been swallowed up in victory.
Where, O death, is your victory?
Where, O death, is your sting? I Cor 15:55

When Mr. Loftin discovered his cancer was incurable, even as a Christian he became despondent and almost vegetative in his depression. He saw his life was nearly over.

One night he was restless and could not sleep so he sat in his den in the dark, overwhelmed by despair. His wife was asleep in their bed.

In that night of darkness he felt a touch on his shoulder, as real as his wife touching him. He turned and saw no one, but he knew who was there and knew he was in the presence of Christ. A peace came over him that moment and lifted his fear and despair. Throughout the remaining days of his life I watched him live with hope and peace; he had felt the presence of the One who would walk with him forever.

This world is not enough.

It’s not enough for those who suffer terribly through their days with death almost a relief.

It’s not enough for those of us who have suffered very little and have had many of our life dreams come true.

It’s not enough for those we leave behind when death has stolen us from their side.
It’s not enough for the guilty, who flourish and never see justice, nor for the good who are persecuted and never rewarded in this life.

It’s not enough for those who spend their lives serving the underserved only to see a thousand faces they will never have time to touch.

This world is not enough. It’s over too soon.

It’s limited by our weakness and trapped by our time schedules and weighed down by our insufficiencies. This world is not enough---and praise God it is not all there is.

Christ has risen from the dead and his rising blows asunder the limitations of this world. Because He rose, I too will rise. Because He rose, I am not alone, ever.

Because He rose, justice triumphs, loved ones meet again, we walk through life with the King at our side---fear loses and love wins.

Dear God,
Let me live the truth of life. You have risen from the dead and that changes everything I know. Let it change everything I do.
Amen

2011-05-24T08:40:00.000-07:00

Three times I pleaded with the Lord about this, that it should leave me. But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness. Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, hardships, persecutions and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong.
II Cor 12: 8-10

It was one of the hardest things I ever faced. I had to tell my patient that my mistake had damaged her heart and that she would probably die from the complication. I spoke the words and then worked for her and with her through the months that led to her death. I was never sued over the incident, but it was years before the husband spoke to me again.

Have you ever failed at something really important---something you were supposed to be good at? A patient? A project? A relationship? A business? A sin?

If you haven’t, you will.

Failure is hard. It hurts us badly and it hurts people for whom we are responsible.

Can any good come from failure? Sure: “With God all things are possible.”

1. Failure helps us discover the truth of who we are. We are fallen, sinful, imperfect human beings. Sometimes humans forget this truth.

2. Failure helps us change. If we approach failure properly, we put into motion new actions in our lives that will help us avoid the same mistakes.

3. Failure helps us reach for the God who can carry us through. When all is going well, we tend to reach for ourselves instead.

4. Reaching for God in our failures allows him to work in ways not possible when our self-sufficiency is in the way.

Failure is bad because it brings great pain. But failure is not a total loss.

When failure comes again, let not its pain resolve until it has brought change in your life. Let the pain of failure allow God to meet you in ways you never allowed during your days of success.

Dear God,
Let me not fail in ways that hurt other people. But when I do, please work in my life and change me to become more like Jesus next time.
Amen.

Put it into Practice

2011-05-17T08:30:00.000-07:00

Rejoice in the Lord, always. I will say it again: Rejoice! Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near. Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which passes all understanding, will keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.

Finally brother, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable---if anything is excellent or praiseworthy---think about such things. Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me, or seen in me---put it into practice. And the God of peace will be with you. Php 4:4-9

Our pastor’s new granddaughter was seriously ill last week. Her father took her to the emergency room when she developed respiratory distress. Three times she ceased breathing during her hospital care. When her young father was twelve, he had watched his little sister die in the same hospital from a different viral illness. His pathos was overwhelming, particularly the feeling he experienced when he entered the hospital cafeteria,
“Daddy, it was just the way it was when Alex died. All those memories came over me like a wave; and now my little girl was there on oxygen fighting a nasty virus.”

The emotional weight of that moment forced him outside. He told his Dad later. “I just cried out, ‘O God, you are my Rock and my Foundation’….and then I went back inside to be the man God created me to be.”

I want some of that---the ability to pour my heart out to God when life is impossible, followed by the fortitude to walk through those circumstances doing the right thing.

As doctors, we frequently watch our patients go there….but then comes our turn.
How do we do our own tough circumstances well?

Whether it be illness, or a torn relationship, or failed business, or malpractice, or failure in sin, or broken dreams, Paul lays it out for us in this magnificent chapter in Philippians.

1. Rejoice in the Lord, for he is near.
2. Pour out our hearts to the King of the universe
3. Thank God for all he has done before
4. Accept the peace that comes with God’s presence
5. Focus on the right thing, the honorable, the excellent
6. Watch how men and women in Christ have walked the same path before you
7. Do, as God leads

My pastor’s granddaughter is fine now and his son is a new role model I can now follow.

Dear God,
Help me rest in you and walk it through.
Amen

A Matter of Focus

2011-05-10T05:18:00.000-07:00

The Lord does not look at the things man looks at. Man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart. I Sam 16: 7

“The world is too much with us late and soon..."

Isn't that the truth?

Wordsworth got it right when he described my life: spouse, kids, parents, job, church, taxes, health, bills and pleasures. This whole life is a sponge of responsibilities that soak up my attention---and I'm supposed to be spiritually minded.

Right! Perhaps in the morning with my coffee prayers and at bedtime with my “lay me down to sleep” prayers.

Is this world set up where I have to escape from the busyness of life in order to be rightly focused on the Lord? To some degree that’s true, but more importantly, I suspect God wants me to be rightly focused on Him in the middle of my fast paced responsibilities.

If we take the incarnation of Jesus seriously, we understand that God wants to live through our real life, not just in the breaks between the important events of our days. He wants us to see each hectic encounter as a divine encounter, where he is present, changing lives. Unfortunately, for most of us, this truth lies before us but our view remains out of focus.

Focus is a matter of choice and God allows us to choose the lens we use to focus life.

As we ricochet through the hectic moments of our days, we can view the world through the lens of self or we can view the world through the acutely truthful lens of the Cross. If we choose our own lens, we often see life out of balance.

If, however, we choose the lens of the Cross, each encounter in our day looks different:

People who hurt us don’t look so bad because we see ourselves and remember God’s mercy.

Good men still look lost if they have not found the Father.

Our hectic schedules reveal God weaving His thread of opportunity and grace through every encounter.

In our weakness, we see His power; in our surrender, we see His victory.

In every person, we see our responsibility, dependent on His power.

Some of us need to slow down and simplify so that we may be more rightly focused on God. All of us need to focus on the life we now live through the lens of the Cross.

Dear God,
Help me today to see the world and every person I meet as you see them.
Amen.

Crossing the Road

2011-05-03T05:20:00.000-07:00

At the end of seven days the Lord came to me: “Son of man, I have made you a watchman for the house of Israel; so hear the word I speak and give them warning from me….Eze 3: 16-19

My granddaughter calls me "Doc".

Unlike most of the pretty girls I grew up with, she actually enjoys my company. Nearly two years old, she sees the entire world through eyes of discovery.

Last night I took my kids out to dinner before I left for a mission trip. When dessert time came, I took Elaina outside so the others could relax and enjoy a moment of adult conversation.

Across the restaurant drive was an island of flowers, so Elaina and I practiced holding hands and looking for cars as we repeatedly enjoyed the trip to the flowers. Handholding was definitely contrary to her independent nature but she grudgingly let me grip her fingers during each trip. There was one moment I looked up at a noise from the restaurant and she broke for the curb. No problem, I reached out and stopped her, just as a car whizzed by. There was never any real danger; but the next day, as I remembered the event, I shuddered.

Do you ever think of "witnessing for Christ" as a religious act you complete like an item on a checklist entitled, "How to please God?”

As I head to Albania for the 17th time, I wonder if it's worth it all.

If my witness to those doctors on the Adriatic is simply a religious duty, I’m sure it’s not.

If, however, God has given me the responsibility to hold Albanian hands across a treacherous road of life to meet their Father; and, if I really believe that stepping into life on their own means their destruction; and, if I really love them, then 17 trips is nothing. If I understand the truth of life, these mission trips are not just a check in a box to make God smile. Just like words of life spoken to my colleagues at home or to my students or patients or the neighbor next door, my witness for Christ on this mission is much less like a check mark and much more like a hand held out to a little girl who calls me “Doc" and wants to touch the flowers on the other side.

Dear Father,
Give me your heart for your lost children.
Amen

Worship

2011-04-26T09:09:00.000-07:00

Come, let us bow down in worship, let us kneel before the Lord our Maker Ps 95: 6

I walked the dusty mile down Tirana’s streets to the library where Christian doctors and students were to gather. I passed by beggars, businessmen, schoolchildren and lovers, but as usual my thoughts were on myself.

How often I spend more time considering the world’s effect on me rather than God’s desire to affect the world through me. Absorbed in my own problems, I turned down the street to the library.

And then we came together, eight students with names like Doloreza, Klara, Flosi and Visi, in a small room with a guitar, Bibles in two languages and hearts held out to God. We spoke; we sang; we prayed; and I left the room a different person.

There is something grand about worship. There is something vital about gathering together and lifting our hearts to the Creator King. I am sure that God is pleased as our praise rises to greet Him, but His pleasure is not the end of worship. As God is enjoying our praise, He sends something back to us through that praise that transforms our lives. Somehow, together meeting God in worship changes us. We do not just send messages heavenward; as we worship, God touches us.

As we worship:
He gives us new vision: we come to see the world differently; we see people differently.

He gives us new thoughts: our self-centered thinking becomes God centered thinking.

He shifts our burdens: though the weight is still there, we are no longer lifting it alone.

We become new people.

Worship pleases God and worship changes us. As we give God praise, He gives us Himself.

Perhaps, as I seek to become the disciple Christ calls me to be, I may need to do religion less and worship with others more.

Dear God,
Let me gather with Your people and worship You as Lord.
Amen

Memories

2011-04-12T05:12:00.000-07:00

So I will always remind you of these things, even though you know them and are firmly established in the truth you now have. I think it is right to refresh your memory as long as I live in the tent of this body… 2 Pet 1: 12-13

The years rolled back and the memories rolled over me as I walked the grounds of Eku Baptist Hospital where Becky and I and our two oldest children had spent two years as medical missionaries. Our career there had been cut short in God’s planning, but the events there lived on as I stepped from ward to ward and into the hospital chapel: memories of God doing awesome and impossible things and memories of a deep dedication to His service that we as missionaries shared. Those were the days.

Memories are great for nostalgia, for helping us feel alive when the busyness of life has numbed us to true living. However, memories in the scripture were far more than that. Memories to Peter were vital for our moving forward in this present life toward God’s plan for our future.

It has been twenty-five years since my time in Eku, but these recent memories have recharged my spiritual batteries for the steps' God has planned for me this next year. They have reminded me of my purpose in this life and have made real to me again the power of God, who will accomplish all that He has for me if I yield my life to Him.

What memories are buried in your own life? What times with God and for God have you forgotten that need to be remembered? What moments of His overwhelming presence need to be revisited so that you can be refreshed and dedicated to the only life that matters… a life poured out at the foot of the Cross?

I challenge you, as you go through this day, to relive in your mind the times in your life when God was most real to you, and you were most devoted to Him. Measure your steps this week by those memories. Remember, be thankful, recharge, and live today with the same truth and Presence as you did before.

Dear God, Thank you for the moments of this life with you. Remind me frequently of the times you have been visible in great love and power. Let these memories ignite me to a life lived for you.

Partners

2011-04-06T05:07:00.000-07:00

In all my prayers for all of you, I always pray with joy because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now…Php 1: 4-5.

Long before I was a doctor, I was a college student, growing in my faith. I loved the Lord and was figuring out what that means in real life. Charles Ray was an interesting man in his thirties, of great intellect, who cared about guys my age. He, more than others I have known, walked through the world with a sense that God is really in it with us. I remember Charles Ray well and the nights in Bellingrath Chapel where he taught us what it means to pray to a God who hears and cares and acts.

Thank God we are not in this alone, though often we live that way.

When was the last time you shared with another doctor the name of a colleague you are seeking to introduce to our Savior?

When was the last time you sat in a room with other doctors and prayed for each other’s families?

When was the last time you gathered with other doctors and discussed the integration of faith into your practices?

When was your last mission with others to the underinsured, either here or internationally?

When was the last time you mentored a younger doctor or student?

Our individual salvation is between each of us and God, but our reason for continuing in this world is fully wrapped up in each other. We are here as the Church to build each other, comfort each other, guide each other, correct each other, worship together and witness together. And doctors, more than any other profession, try to do it alone.

Dear God, Help me commit to partnering with other Christian doctors so that we may become and do all that you have for us. Amen

Disneyland

2011-03-29T05:12:00.000-07:00

And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. Rom 8:28

Jennifer was a patient of mine who gave me permission to share her story. Lymphoma once trapped her and her family in a year of great difficulty with chemotherapies and cancelled plans. When she was finally recovering, it was now time for her kids; so she planned a wonderful escape to a friend’s cottage on Pickwick Lake. Her kids were ecstatic but fearful. Her eight-year-old son prayed day after day that this time their plans for fun would not be cancelled. Finally the weekend arrived and so did the rain. The trip and family fun was washed away.

Her son then came to Jennifer and asked, "I asked God to let us go; why didn’t he answer?" Jennifer replied, "He did answer. His answer was 'no'." And then she added with wisdom well beyond my own, "God said 'no' to Pickwick so He could say 'yes' to something better."

Neither the heartbroken boy nor his mother knew at the time that her friends had already arranged for her family to share a wonderful week in Disneyland. When Jennifer learned of the gift, she was able to tell her son, "You see---God said 'no' to Pickwick, so He could say 'yes' to Disneyland."

Sometimes God just says, "No".

Life is often a struggle and often there flashes out before us something we think will make it all so much better. Each of us knows what that means in our own life, or in the life of someone we love. As people of faith, we plead for God’s "Yes"; we cry out to our Lord; sometimes he delivers us and sometimes he does not. Sometimes he gives us that great joy we have been longing for and sometimes he doesn’t.

So, sometimes we are stuck with God’s "No". And if that’s the way God handles our prayers, is there anything we can count on when we open our hearts to the Creator of the universe?

Yes.

Whatever the circumstance that drives us to pray, we can definitely count on God to work "for the good of those who love Him". That’s what Romans 8:28 is all about. That’s the message of Calvary. God’s business is fashioning goodness out of brokenness, beauty out of void. When we suffer, God never wastes our pain. And when we long for that which cannot be, God will someday say "Yes" to something better.

So often that "better" is God himself, the Omega of our existence, in a way we have never known him, in a way so grand that some have looked back and told me that they thanked God for their pain.

Dear God,

Let me be confident that you hear my cry and bring to me your best.

Amen

A Different Train

2011-03-22T07:08:00.000-07:00

Without delay he called them and they left their father Zebedee in the boat with the hired men and followed him. Mk 1: 20

We drive past him every Sunday, wintertime newspaperman wrapped in heavy coat and cotton gloves, his breath like cigarette smoke as he hands out his livelihood to the passing cars for a dollar. I admire his hard work and wish that I needed the paper just to help him out. For the past two Christmases, we have stopped and handed him $100 for his hard work and our peace. We have not yet asked him over for dinner.

It is not easy to interpret our personal acts of kindness…what portion goodness and what portion guilt. I suspect it’s best not to think too hard when our hearts compel us to give, otherwise our reasoning might deny the gift. But, after the gift, it is sometimes helpful to look back for introspection.

When speaking of the German Church during Hitler’s rise to power, Dietrich Bonheoffer stated, “If you board the wrong train it is no use running along the corridor in the opposite direction.”

That stuck with me. Am I on the right train? Have I boarded a train named “My Right to Happiness” or “Bound for Self Fulfillment”? If so, “running along the corridor in the opposite direction” to help those in need or to perform minor sacrifices for the Cross may be admirable and somewhat helpful, but ultimately of minimal importance for God’s Kingdom. The world has lots of trains painted with God signs headed in the world’s direction.

Some of us need to stop running and board a different train.

Dear God,
Please help me travel on the Way of the Cross and not the way of the world.
Amen

Idols

2011-03-15T06:22:00.000-07:00

But I have this against you that you have abandoned the love you had at first. Rev 2:4

Our closest friends were moving to a new development and convinced us we should join them. It was going to be a beautiful subdivision with great security. My wife and I had never built a house from scratch. We poured ourselves into the planning and it soon took over our hearts. The Long hours with the architect; decision after decision, just the way we had dreamed a house should be. Years before this we had promised the Lord that we would never spend more money on a house than we could gain from the sale of our present home. We were up front with the architect and he was convinced we could stay within our cost guidelines, until the plans were completed and we took it to the builder. Here was our dream home and here was our promise. Where was our heart?

The Old Testament talks a great deal about idols, but finally boils it down to anything that steals our heart away from God. So many possessions, experiences and relationships in this world compete with God for our hearts. We are often caught at a decision crossroad looking both ways with longing.

I suspect these heart-rending crossroads will be part of our lives repeatedly until we leave our natural bodies for Heaven. My personal desires in this life have frequently led me away from full devotion to my Creator, causing me to break God’s commandments and waste time in their service, leading me to sins of both commission and omission. They make me act wrongly by first making me love wrongly. In fact, the way to determine whether a desire in this life is legitimate or is an idol is whether it turns us toward or away from our first love, Jesus Christ.

If we could view our idols objectively, one real problem is that idols break their promises. They often promise us the world, but always deliver far less. Tim Keller in his book, Counterfeit Gods, looks back at Jacob’s great love for Rachel. We recall Jacob’s seven long years of service to gain Rachel as his wife and then recall Laban’s treachery when Jacob woke to find that he had married the sister, Leah, instead. (Gen 29). Tim Keller describes our desire for idols to be much like Jacob’s overwhelming desire for Rachel. [paraphrase] “No person, experience, possession, not even the best one, can give your soul all it needs. If you pursue anything with all your heart, other than God, you are going to think you have gone to bed with Rachel; but when you wake up, it will always be Leah.”

What am I giving my heart to this week? Is it turning me toward or away from my First Love? How long before I wake up to its false promises?

Dear God,
Not self-fulfillment, but Christ fulfillment. Take my heart and protect it from the longings of this world, unless those longings lead me closer to you.
Amen

Surrender in the Workplace

2011-03-08T08:33:00.000-08:00

If anyone would come after me, let him… Mk 8:34.

Academic medicine is rewarding, but has its stresses, just like any job. For me, the stress comes in completing and publishing research trials so that I can be recognized as a legitimate academician. Certainly, I’m here for God’s purpose; but I’ve got to make a name for myself, so He can be glorified. I felt the same way about my grades during my student years and about my referral reputation and success in providing for my family during my years of private practice. I want to do it all for God, but sometimes my desire to accomplish, succeed and be known wraps itself around me and it becomes the focus of my days.

Have you ever needed to stop and ask yourself what you are working for, or for whom are you working? Sometimes we get so confused about why we are working that it changes the way we work. If we decide that our primary purpose in working is to make money for our families, we will work in one way. If we decide that our work is important to fulfill a desire to be needed, that will direct the way we work. If we work primarily to gain respect or reputation, we will focus our work accordingly. In Colossians, Paul tells us that we should work primarily to glorify God’s name and to please Him with our efforts. Most of us keep this truth in the back of our minds and then focus on certain work goals as a means to that end. If I can make enough money, build a great reputation, to help enough people, then that will legitimize God and bring glory to His name. The problem comes when the means wraps itself around us and becomes an end in itself. This happens with me all the time.

For me to get this right, it takes regular surrender. Every morning I have to un-clutch the parts of my life that I clutched for myself the day before. Whether it is research, or time or money or fame or family…at the end of my morning of prayer each day I surrender back to the Lord those things I took for myself the day before. I still frequently find my arms gripping tightly the stuff I should have handed over, but far less than if I had not purposely, regularly offered it to my King.

Dear God,
All I am, all I have, all my dreams, all my plans, all those I love. Take them and let me not steal them back this day.
Amen

Praying with Patients

2011-03-02T08:04:00.000-08:00

If I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. I Cor 13:1-3

She was a crotchety, complaining old lady whom I had been treating for a recent exacerbation of her illness. The unexpected side effects of my treatment had landed her in the hospital, and she swore she would not take any more. I was struggling to understand and help her, but she was as stubborn as that boxwood root I had dug up last spring to plant roses.

“I’m so sorry that you are having to go through this illness. I think we can help you.”

“It’s not the illness,” she said, “I’m just so alone.”

“What about your family?”

“They don’t care about me. They just give me grief about my sickness. “

“Do you have a church you can depend on?”

“It’s so small and they are all old with their own problems…but there was one lady who I know from out of town. I get with her by e-mail. She made a special trip to come and see me in the hospital. And she hugged me.”

Tears started to flow.

“Her hug healed me.”

How often do we give the wrong medicine to those who are suffering? How often do we use our education, intelligence and sophisticated systems to fix problems for patients or for those we love and miss the real picture?

Sometimes our patients, our friends, our children, our friends don’t need our expertise; they need our hugs. Sometimes it is not our toolbox but our kindness that counts.

Take a look today at those you are trying to help or heal. Which one needs a word and touch of kindness today? Do that first and then reach for your toolbox.

Dear Father,
Let me not forget your gentle touch when I reach out to those in need today. Let not the rush of my day drive your kindness away. Please stay with me and touch through me.
Amen

Follow Me

2011-02-22T05:14:00.000-08:00

And Jesus said to them, “Follow me…” Mk 1:17

Our son was graduating from high school and soon we would be empty-nesters. Finally, the time was coming when we could let go of our normal life responsibilities and serve God in a more complete way with our lives.

When could we get started? What will He have us do? How can we make it work with all of our ties to the normal life? Which direction will God take us? If our retirement income is not enough, should we wait awhile?

My wife and I probed the darkness, asking God to answer our questions so that we could fulfill His call. Every probe came back empty…until we were different people, and then God flung the door wide open.

Many of us feel restless at times in our lives and begin listening hard for God’s whisper. When it comes, we think we are ready to follow Him wherever He leads; and then we begin to ask our questions.

Following after God always involves change. Whatever that change may be, before we follow we usually want to know how we can work it all out, so that we can do it well for God (and minimize the damage to ourselves). We look at our world and the questions start to fly.

When?
What?
How?
Which?
If….?

These are legitimate questions but they may become the nails that hold our feet to the floor when God calls us forward.

As doctors we are accustomed to evaluating and understanding the problem before we step out to fix things. Our inability to understand our future sometimes makes it difficult for us to step into God’s future. Sometimes we may be immobilized by our questions to God.

God’s questions to us are different. God’s questions to us are:
Will you trust me?
Will you obey me?

Our questions to God don’t matter much until we answer His questions to us.
Will you trust me, whatever?
Will you obey me, whatever?

Usually, God’s questions are not answered with intellect only. Usually, God’s questions require action. Very often, the only way to answer God’s questions is to step into the darkness in the direction we hear Him calling.

Dear God,
Whatever, whenever, wherever, however ...
Amen.

Gracious Uncertainty

2011-02-15T05:13:00.000-08:00

He will have no fear of bad news; his heart is steadfast, trusting in the Lord. Ps 112:7

Franklin was beginning chemotherapy for prostate cancer.

“You know doc, when I was going to have my prostate biopsy, after they had discovered my PSA was 88, I was very anxious. I don’t normally do this kind of thing, but I couldn’t sleep and I picked up my Bible and just opened it. I opened it to Psalm 112. Someone, not me, had circled in my Bible (my wife never opens my Bible), verse 7. I knew after I read the verse that I could face my future without fear.

Do you ever face your future with fear? How about now?

For some reason God has designed our lives so that our future is hidden from us, allowing us to imagine circumstances that may or may not come to pass. Sometimes they do and they are very good; sometimes they are horrible…malpractice, broken relationships, financial failure, a self-destructive child, tragic illness and on and on. Our future is uncertain in many ways and there are certainly hard times out there for all of us. When faced with such possibilities, it is normal to be afraid.

When I was a child, my greatest time of uncertainty was Christmas morning. My parents compounded our anxious anticipation by making us stand at the top of the stairs while my father prepared all the complicated home movie lights. Only after the set up was complete were we able to walk slowly down the stairs toward our Christmas, waving politely into the blinding movie lights. For us as children, all the important stuff of the morning was behind those blinding lights, underneath the Christmas tree.

We could never be certain at the top of the stairs that we would find under the tree that which we had asked for and dreamed of. In spite of that, we were excited and confident, rather than fearful and anxious. We were confident that Christmas morning would bring us joy because we knew the man behind the lights, the man who had prepared for us our Christmas morning. Even when I did not find what I expected under the tree, what I did find was always wonderful.

Just so with life ... I cannot see beyond the blinding lights or cold darkness that hides my future, but I do know Who is out there calling me into my future. We may often be uncertain of events ahead of us in this life, but we can always be certain of the One who calls us forth. As Oswald Chambers put it, “Leave everything to Him and it will be gloriously and graciously uncertain how He will come in---but you can be certain that He will come.” (My Utmost for His Highest, April 29).

Dear Father,

Thank you for calling me into my future and for being there to lead me on.

Amen.

The Everlasting Arms

2011-02-08T05:09:00.000-08:00

She was in her 80’s, overweight, confined to a wheel chair with swollen legs. But she was as bright as a new copper penny and wore a smile that was both constant and genuine. After my evaluation and recommendations were completed, she asked, “Doctor, may I share with you the verse that is getting me through all this?”
“Sure.”

"It is Deuteronomy 33: 27: ‘The eternal God is your refuge, and underneath are the everlasting arms. He will drive out your enemy before you, saying, ‘Destroy him.’"

“That’s what I do with this cancer; I just trust God to drive it out.”

Arms to hold and arms to drive out.

I hope most of us can look back on our lives and feel God’s arms when they alone could hold us---when the world had vanished beneath our feet and nothing was keeping us from falling forever. I hope that most of us can remember the advancing armies bent on our destruction that only His arms could sweep aside---and remember that they did.

I can certainly recall a day when my dreams had evaporated, when my family, my self-image and even my faith was dissolving in front of my eyes. All personal and system approaches had failed to hold me up and I was freefalling into darkness.

And then I was caught by the arms of God. I cannot forget the feel of those arms. Nor can I forget the way they swept away the forces that would destroy me.

Have you been there yet?

If you have, remember.

If you have not, you will.

The God of Deuteronomy 33 will never change.

Dear Father,
I need You now whether I am crying out in despair or comfortable in the moment. Let me know that Your arms are He…both to hold and to drive out.
In Christ alone,
Amen.

The Call

2011-02-01T05:18:00.000-08:00

So Eli told Samuel, “Go and lie down, and if he calls you, say, “Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening.” I Sam 3:9.

Sandra had been the leader of the Christian medical and dental students in San Antonio. I had not seen her for years when we caught up at a colleague’s wedding. She had settled into a Family Practice in Texas, was married with a great husband and two kids.

“Everything’s great,” she told me. “But it doesn’t always seem right. I remember my days in school and remember my passion for the Lord. I know God made me for more than myself and my family.”

“You may be exactly where God wants you,” I said.

“I know. But I always planned to something great with my life. After all these years it seems like I’ve settled into a life like every other doctor I know---just busy with good but unimportant things, taking care of my family and handing out bits of extra to God’s business.”

God certainly doesn’t want us to become just like other doctors. He may wish us to live in the same location and with the same occupation, or not. He certainly wants us to be different. As Flannery O’Connor put it, “You shall know the truth and the truth shall make you odd.” Odd like Jesus.

Some of us have grown to become odd like Jesus and others of us have grown normal, like our doctor colleagues who don’t love God.

What is it that makes us into who we become?

Os Guinness in his book, The Call, describes four forces that mold our lives:

We are constituted to be: each of us is born with unique attributes and skills that direct us down certain paths in our lives.
We are constrained to be: our culture, our environment and the events in our lives play a real part in directing who we become.
Many of us can rise above our constitution and the constraints on our lives with the courage to be more than our biology and environment would naturally make us.
Courage without direction is dangerous and foolhardy. The direction in which we point our courage may come from many sources; but, if we are to use our courage for life that matters, we need to become what we are called to be.

God’s call comes to each of us. Some of us listen and some have the courage to follow.

Dear God,

Let me strain my ears Your way. Give me the courage to obey.

Amen.

Pain

2011-01-25T06:36:00.000-08:00

We also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope; And hope does not disappoint us…Rom 5:3-5

Last night I woke up with a throbbing toothache that would not quit. It had happened once before and resolved with penicillin. This time it would not quit. All through my workday seeing patients, my mind was dulled by this constant, throbbing pain. And then I sat in the dentist chair: the numbing shot, the painless drill to open the abscess and life was good again.

I have always hated pain when it was my own. I can be very noble and philosophic about another person’s pain, but my own distorts my nobility and makes all the color drain from life around me. Pain hurts.

As Christian doctors we have been blessed with the privilege of spending our lives relieving the physical and emotional pains of our patients. What a gift.

But then there is our own pain. I’ve come to expect it in life. My turn in being human is only fair. But when my personal pain comes, it still saps my spirit and dulls my intellectual capacity and makes the whole world gray until the pain is relieved. For some of us, the suffering lasts much longer than my toothache. Emotionally or physically, it just seems that it may never end.

So what’s the good of it?

The chief good of pain is that pain points us toward healing and away from harm.
As C S Lewis says, “Pain is God’s megaphone.” This is true physically, emotionally and spiritually. But pain does even more than this. Pain changes character. If we suffer alone, such change may be toward bitterness, but if we suffer with the Christ who suffered for us, that change moves us toward perseverance and hope. When we are in pain, often without our own knowledge and effort, God works in us to make us dependent on Him with a hope that “does not disappoint us.” We learn to lean not on physical well-being or on relationships with other broken humans, but on the God of Creation who will one day make it all okay. We cannot learn this lesson outside of pain. We cannot grow such trust when we are not whole. We cannot be God’s partners in redemption without suffering.

So, I still hate pain and love my dentist; but when the pain comes again, however severe, I will bow and thank my God, not for the suffering, but for all He is accomplishing through it, though I often see it not.

Dear Father,
Let it be to me as you require, to bring glory to Your name.

Bulls - Eye

2011-01-18T05:14:00.000-08:00

So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal. 2 Cor 4:18

Funerals do not have to be depressing affairs. Mary was the mother of one of my best friends growing up. She was a woman who walked next to God. I had cared for her physician husband during his fatal illness twenty years ago. If any of us is eligible, Mary will certainly be one who hears those words from our Lord, “Well done.”

I listened as the young man sung the beautiful hymn, Eternal Life… ”For it is in dying that we are born into eternal life”….and I could see her there, rising up to Jesus.

For me it was a moment of memory but also a moment of commitment. The thought of heaven is not just helpful for me as a hope in the face of death’s despair. In a real way, heaven is a target, a bull’s-eye for my life on earth.

Our lives are filled with decision-making moments and directional choices. Sometimes there are no clear signs to show us the way. I have found that these decision points are less stressful if I can focus on life’s ultimate destination. When I sat in that funeral service and pictured Mary with a Lord who was pleased with her life, I told myself, “That is my life’s goal, my chosen destination.” So, if my ultimate destination in life is the Lord holding out his arms, “Well done, good and faithful servant,” and then the individual choices I make between now and then had better point that way as well. If I choose this trajectory in life, many decisions I might otherwise make cannot be made and life choices actually become less complicated.

Ken Jones, a pastor friend of mine and CMDA leader, has often told me that there are two ways to hit a bulls-eye; one is to draw the bulls-eye and aim for it; the other is to shoot your arrow and draw the bulls-eye around the place the arrow lands.

I’m drawing my bulls-eye now: “Well done, good and faithful servant.” I plan to aim for it with every earthly choice I make.

Dear Father,
Thank you for the truth of heaven. Thank you that You are there with open arms. Let me make my choices here so that I will then hear You say, “Well done.”
Amen.

Inviting God to the Bedside

2011-01-11T10:26:00.000-08:00

The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective. James 5: 16

Randy was suffering from a difficult illness. As I took his history, I asked him about his religious faith.
“I was raised_____, but I’m really secular now.”
As I finished his examination and laid out the plan for his treatment, I assured him that I would provide the best care possible and that I would be praying for him.
“Don’t get me wrong, Doc, I accept prayers from anyone."
“Would you like for me to pray for you now?”
“I sure would.”
“I’m a Christian and can only pray as a follower of Christ.”
“That’s fine.”

Do we seek to pray with our patients?
Do we, with respect for our patients’ spiritual autonomy before God and with their permission, pray with them for God’s good to come into their lives?
If we do, what good does this sometimes awkward, bedside prayer accomplish?
It certainly is a witness to our faith.
It certainly lets those we seek to serve know that we are concerned about them beyond their biology and their pocketbooks.
It may help our patients realize that their life is dependent on our Creator and it may open up communion between them and the Father.
It focuses us, as their doctors, on the eternal nature of the patients we are treating and our dependence on Him for their healing.
And, most importantly, our prayer invites the God of the Universe to enter our patients’ lives with love and power.
So, why don’t we more often pray with our patients?

Dear God,
Just as I pray for my patients each day when I am alone with You, help me to more often pray with them in Your presence.
Amen.

Blue Times

2011-01-04T14:03:00.000-08:00

I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is none like me. I make known the end from the beginning, from ancient times what is still to come. I say: My purpose will stand, and I will do all that I please. Is 46:9-10

Throughout the week a blanket of concern had settled across my shoulders. Every event ahead seemed over-weighted with worry---my son’s school, my daughter’s ultrasound, my wife’s mammogram, and the angry patient two days from now. It seemed as though the joy had leaked from my life. God was present in my brain but not my heart. So, I plodded through the week through each anxiety producing moment as, one by one, God worked them out and all was well.

Why are some weeks just blue? There are days when peace just seems to take a holiday, when depression or anxiety enters my life in spite of all my efforts to pray and trust. Perhaps that’s just the old man competing with my new nature, or perhaps it’s simply psychology and physiology doing their natural thing.

I thank God that he is not held captive by the emotions that capture me. When I am depressed, he is not. When I am paralyzed by anxiety, he is perfectly free to work out His will. When I am slogging through the mud, God moves unimpeded down the pathway of his plan.

I certainly wish that every day I could feel the “peace that passes understanding.” There certainly are steps I can take toward finding that peace: steps like trust, worship, obedience, thanksgiving and prayer.

Whatever the cause of my distress, it comforts me to know that God will work out his plan of love in my life even when I do not experience the joy of his presence. He will use my circumstances to write his redemption story even if I don’t feel like reading it that day.

I know as well that he wishes for me to continue in his service even when I feel like licking my wounds. With the knowledge of his relentless, loving plan, I find the strength, even in the blue times, to will my steps for Him, even when I miss the feel of his loving hand on my shoulder. His purpose continues and I can join Him, motivated sometimes by joy and sometimes by commitment.

Dear Father,
I know you love me. I know you are the source of all peace, comfort and joy. When life lies heavy on my soul, help me step forward into the relentless current of your will.
Amen

Prison Blue

2010-12-28T05:11:00.001-08:00

There is no one who does good, not even one. Ro 3:12

A father and his son, standing against a wall printed with trees and streams. Dad in his blue scrub top, roughing his son’s hair and then drawing him close in love for the picture. I had promised to visit my friend in Pleasant Valley Prison and was angry with myself when the prison receptionist reminded me of the seven years since my last visit.

They assigned us a table. My friend and I talked and laughed, and I watched the tears in his eyes for three and a half hours before he returned to his lifetime cell and I drove back to Fresno to catch a plane to the family I love.

Lot’s of deep thoughts from that visit---but the picture that hangs in my brain is a father tussling his son’s hair and then pulling him close against the artificial forest while his wife pointed the camera.

There but for the grace of God go I.

Sometimes as a doctor I walk proud in my role. Sometimes as a Christian I feel good about myself.

But when I look at that father in prison blue, loving a son whom he could only pretend to really know, faced with a legacy not of pride but shame, I am humbled.

I know in truth that there is nothing that father could have done that I am not capable of doing, given the right motivation and the absence of God’s protection. I am at my center a sinner saved only by grace, empowered to live free from my sins only through the power of the One who lives within me. I make my rounds and sit in my church and hold my loved ones as a good man only because of the good in the One who died to break sin’s grip on me.

Dear God,
Please bless that man in blue. Except for You, I am he.
Amen.

Armor Is for Battle

2010-12-21T05:18:00.000-08:00

Therefore, put on the full armor of God…Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. In addition to all of this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. Eph 6: 13-18.

Dexter and his wife, Angie, had enjoyed the benefits of private practice for 10 years. They loved their home, neighborhood and near-by family.

Then God made them restless and asked them to change direction in life and serve Him in the inner city. Dexter’s partners did not understand, nor did his family. They moved 500 miles and rented an apartment near their new ministry. They were risking much but riding high on the conviction and presence of God’s Spirit.

It was incredibly difficult. Their tenth grade son began to run with the kids at school and was suspended for having marijuana in his locker. Angie developed a depression as she longed for her family. Dexter loved his work, but grieved each day for the suffering in his wife and son.

It’s really neat when God speaks and you take the plunge into the rushing current of His will. It’s invigorating, like you have finally become what God created you to be.

It is certainly invigorating, but, as we dive into God’s will, we should do so with eyes wide open.

When we live out a call from our King, we would be foolish if we forget that we serve Him on a battlefield. When we serve God fully, we serve Him as C S Lewis described, “in enemy-held territory”. If we fight for the Lord, we must expect to feel the sword of the enemy: “In this world you will have tribulation…”

Thank God he has supplied us with armor that protects us time and time again, knowing full well that, even with the armor, the farther we advance, the more likely we will be wounded.

So, how do we continue the charge and survive?

Dick Swenson once told me, “The Church must be both an army and a hospital.” We, the Church, must be ready to bind each other’s wounds as we struggle for our King. For, unless we function as a hospital, our army cannot survive.

Just so, unless we function as an army, the hospital is wasted; there is little need for a hospital if no soldiers are wounded in battle.

God has created us to charge into battle for Him. So, we need to armor up and charge, just as Dexter and Angie have done. If we stay in the fight long enough and threaten the enemy, we will be injured; yet, together we will survive; we will overcome; and He will be glorified. The victory is sure.

Dear God,
Help me to step into battle for You. Please protect me and protect the ones I love. Whatever comes, let it bring You glory.
Amen.

Pity Party

2010-12-15T12:23:00.000-08:00

“Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come….” Matt 6:9-10

“Dearly Beloved,

Brother Yang Chen entered into his eternal rest peacefully at 2:12pm Mountain time.

He was resting comfortably in the presence of his wife Alice, brother, sister-in-law Donna and myself bathed in love, prayer, hugs and kisses.

A faithful servant has gone home to be with his heavenly father.”

I woke up this morning in the middle of a pity party with myself as the guest of honor. Work and Christian duty had crowded all the “me” time from my life for quite awhile. Leaving little time for friends or fun and family, always running, always serving other platters with no time left to enjoy my own.

And then I read this e-mail; God had saved it on my computer for such a time as this.

Have you ever had an ”It’s not about me” moment?

Yang Chen, the founder of METS (Medical Evangelism Training and Strategies) was one of those rare non- smokers who developed lung cancer. You can go to the METS website and follow his journey (www.gomets.org). He was as human as you and I, and knew the same sense of loss that comes with a fatal diagnosis. As he was setting up his website, he wrote:

“I wondered how I would break the news to my unsuspecting wife and three young children ages 16,10 and 5 years. Who would take care of my family if I died?”

And then he added:

“Perhaps you wonder why I am taking the time while going through cancer treatment to set up this website. My hope is that by opening a window into my experience with cancer, what I share will offer hope and encouragement to others.”

And then, throughout his cancer journey, both on his website and in stories from those who knew him, Dr. Chen’s words and actions cried out, “It’s not about me! It’s about Jesus!” Just as his life had shouted for decades before his death.

That brings me back to my personal pity party ... “It’s not about me. It’s about Jesus.” Enough said.

Dear Father,
Thank you for men and women like Dr. Chen, who walk the walk without letting "self" turn them aside. Let me remember whose kingdom I am praying for and living for.
Amen.

The Power to Know

2010-12-07T05:17:00.000-08:00

I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ. Eph 3: 16-18.

I knew that God had clearly called us to Nigeria and we were in the process of getting there---mission board applications, winding down the practice and explaining our insanity to family and friends. On a weekend break from a busy medical practice we were camping by a creek on Crowley’s Ridge. My wife and 5 year-old daughter were still asleep in the tent. I was skipping rocks in the creek, tormented by my future. How could I take my family away from all they loved and place them among strangers in strange lands? It was not fair of me to ask. They were willing but I was not.

“I can’t do it, God!”

And that was that, for about five minutes. And then I heard, “Yes you will.” And I knew I would, and we did and those years in Africa changed who I was and changed my knowledge of God.

What does it take to know God? Paul in Ephesians talks about seeking the power of God to know Christ in His fullness. What’s that all about?

Much of my life I have sought to know my Savior and I have attempted to do so by asking Him sincerely to walk with me, trying to listen and learn and love. It was only with the call to Africa that I learned better way.

As long as I walk my path and seek Him, Jesus will be with me, but at a respectable distance. It is when I decide to step onto His path and walk with Him on His way that I really come to know Him, and in knowing Him I learn to love Him more.

There will always be a “respectable” separation from our Lord if we insist on traveling a path in life that we have chosen. Our Lord has a better plan for us and for His glory and that plan walks a path that we will have not chosen. The Lord’s path is not an easy one. This is where a power greater than our own is required. In Ephesians and in my own experience it takes the power of God, both to step onto His path and to continue beside Him. The path of our choice continues to beckon us back to our will and our way. Praise His name that God is able to move us where we would not go and keep us when we prefer to stray, and through His power allow us to walk beside Him day by day, growing in knowledge and love.

Dear God,
Grant me the power to step onto Your path so that I may walk close to You and know the height and depth of Your love.
Amen.

Memories

2010-11-30T09:26:00.000-08:00

Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.
Php 3: 13-14

I drove by the house where I raised my children today. What memories.
Here was pain and joy and fullness of life, times close to God and times astray. There were early morning devotionals at the kitchen table and late suppers with my kids asleep. We had great family times as well as times of tears. Time to look back and realize that God was there through it all, moving me and those I love toward His precious will.

Memories…what are they good for? Sometimes they bring great thoughts of joy and energize. Sometimes they leave us with a sense of loss for times that will never return. Sometimes as we remember, we feel a stab of despair from an intensely painful experience, pain that may or may not have diminished with the years.

Memories bring patients from my past, a few of whom were despicable characters, but most who were blessings to my life. When I think of them, I see God’s work in their healing or God’s succor as they rested in arms they knew could hold them well. I am a different and better person because of them.

I look back on failures and wonder, if only. I re-live great successes and wonder that God could have brought them my way.

Memories are not just days gone by. They are the bricks that have made us who we are. Some are beautiful colonial bricks without deformities and others are chipped and dark---but together they form the structure that God has built me into. If we are His, the structure of our lives is beautiful and suited for His purpose, no matter how an individual brick might appear when standing alone. If we focus on the dark bricks, we are paralyzed with fear. If we focus on the beautiful ones we are frozen in pride. When we focus on the structure as a whole, we see a temple for God.

Individually, memories can be helpful as directional markers for decision making in the future, making it worthwhile to look back and learn; but we should never look back and cling.

All of our past has been taken by our Creator and fashioned in the present into an arrow that He wishes to fire toward His target. Even the failures have become guiding feathers. So, I see the house that raised my kids and I both smile and cry. I also see the hand of God and focus all of my energy on His target ahead.

Dear God,

Only You can get me through this time of stress. Let me hand it to You and move forward in your power for Your glory.

Amen.

Overloaded at Work

2010-11-23T10:28:00.000-08:00

But I trust in you, O Lord; I say, “You are my God; my times are in your hands.” Ps 31: 14-15.

“Hey John, how have you been? “The voice was filled with cheer but I was filled with “oh, no”. I knew why he was calling. I had not yet phoned the doctors I had promised to contact to consider our spring mission trip. I was overloaded at work; one of my partners was away on sick leave; my daughter was performing regularly in gymnastics; my wife was becoming distant---and I had promised to do this thing for our local Christian doctor group. I knew I could find the time but I honestly could not find the emotional will to spend that time and get it done.

Most of us as Christian doctors are time-pressured during many of our days because we have overloaded our lives with good things. We have no time left for the unexpected, not realizing that the unexpected always comes and always demands a piece of our already overloaded lives. When overwhelmed, we usually muddle through, but without joy and without the creative energy necessary to do all things well. We know that we should have planned better, but now we are stuck with way too much and have to push ahead. How do we do it?

1. Remember
a. I am not alone. God’s Church and the Creator of the Universe are with me. Lean on both.
b. It is not I who accomplishes God’s glory; it is He.
c. He is able, with or without me.

2. Select unimportant activities to remove from my life immediately---the extra television, the less important meeting. Erase them from my schedule.

3. Plow ahead and complete my commitments, even if I do so without joy, unless God tells me clearly to let go. My integrity speaks volumes to a lost world.

4. Refuse to say “no” or “yes” to new commitments until I have spent at least 24 hours in prayer and 24 hours weighing new commitments against those already in play.

5. Prioritize so that my few most important priorities are always well maintained.

6. When out from under the stress, simplify my life by removing time junk and possession junk.

7. Surrender my time and plans to God as I head into each day for His glory.

Dear God,
Only You can get me through this time of stress. Let me hand it to You and move forward in your power for Your glory.
Amen.

Time Pressure

2010-11-16T06:31:00.000-08:00

My times are in your hands Ps 31:15.

Walter was doing his best to keep up with his patient load. Besides an overbooked schedule, two emergency problems had placed him farther behind. When it was Malcolm’s turn, Walter was wound tightly with the pressure of being over one hour behind in his schedule with ten impatient patients still to see. Malcolm had pancreatic cancer and just needed a pain medicine refill---a quick case to catch up some time. After writing the prescriptions and telling Malcolm goodbye, Walter’s thoughts of the next patient were interrupted by the words, “Oh yes, Doc, I forgot to tell you that my calf is hurting.” After a quick exam with few findings, Walter thought “DVT”, but thought it unlikely. Considering the extra time it would take to work it up, he reassured Malcolm, “Tell me if the pain gets worse or if your leg starts swelling.”

The next Monday Malcolm was admitted to the hospital with a pulmonary embolus.

Three months later, Walter received a notification of inadequate patient management from the hospital’s quality review committee.

What do we do when the pressures of time overwhelm our best judgment? There are days in our lives as doctors when we simply cannot perform all of our tasks with excellence because they pile up too fast for us to complete each of them well. The result is hurt patients, hurt families or inappropriate callousness or anger in our behavior. What steps can we take to minimize the damage and maximize the good that our time pressured existence brings to us?

We can:

Prioritize: We should take stock of all that we have crowded into our lives and make certain that the most important things are done well.
Simplify: Each of us needs to let go of at least one time consuming activity in our lives in order to accomplish our top priorities well. This may be at home or may be at work. At work this might even mean reducing our patient numbers with an expected loss of income so that we can do an excellent job for those we do see.
Surrender: Each morning as we surrender our other blessings to the Lord for his service, we should do the same with our time. We are foolish to think that his purpose depends on our scheduled plans.
Discipline: Once we have reordered the schedules of our lives in the best way we can determine, we will still face times when there is too much to accomplish in the time allotted. This is when we take a deep breath, hand the circumstance to God for his glory, and do the right thing with kindness.

Dear Father,

Thank you for the boundaries of time that teach me diligence and trust. Help me reorder my life so that it fits best into Your schedule. Then help me to be content within the time frame You have planned for me.

Amen.

Opening Doors

2010-11-09T05:19:00.000-08:00

Here I am!
I stand at the door and knock. Rev 3:20

This was his first visit and he seemed a bit skittish. After making him more comfortable, I began to obtain the information I needed to manage his problem: present symptoms….past medical history… allergies… social history.

“Are you married?”
“Yes.”
“What kind of work do you do?”
“I’m a teacher.”
“Do you use cigarettes?”
“Quit three years ago.”
“Do you have a religious faith that you follow?”
“Not really. My wife does; she’s a Buddhist. I was raised Jewish….I do believe that there’s a God.”

“I recommend that you call on Him to help you while you are going through this problem.”

How do we as Christian doctors get from, “How’s your back molar doing?”, or “Tell me about your belly pain”, to “Do you know Jesus?” Almost always the correct answer is “one step at a time”.

Patients come to us for a medical or dental problem and expect us to focus on that important issue. For most patients there is a wide intellectual and emotional gap between their concern for their physical problem and their concern over their spiritual health. Most doctors struggle in the same way, “I’m here to fix the need they bring to me”.

It’s like there’s a door between the spiritual lives of doctors and the spiritual lives of their patients, with a knob on either side. The patient won’t turn his knob because he thinks the doctor is not interested. And the doctor won’t turn hers because she is sure that the patient is not interested. Attempting to turn the knob sets off an alarm, screaming “Rejection!” This may not be an ideal model for our Christian witness but for many of us it is reality.

Many doctors have discovered that the most natural way to open the door to a discussion of their patients’ spiritual health is through the spiritual history.

Not only is a spiritual history necessary in order for us to understand our patient holistically, taking this history actually turns the door knob and allows our patients to open up spiritually to whatever God is doing in their lives. And then, we can, guided by God’s spirit, follow with simple faith flags, or even the Gospel story, allowing God in His wisdom to use our encounter to draw his lost child closer to him.

Dear Father,
Teach me to be ready with Your word. Speak through me with every patient I encounter so that You may draw them closer to You.
Amen.

A Light in the Window

2010-11-02T06:37:00.000-07:00

But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him. Luke 15:20.

My friend was a hard driving, Christ loving doctor who was always there when God’s work was to be done. He was there at church; he was there at CMDA meetings, he was there in Bible study; he was there on our yearly mission to Nicaragua; he was even there in the doctor’s lounge, open with his faith. And then, his picture appeared in the newspaper, accused of Medicare fraud. I have no idea of the circumstances. He never quit practice for a jail term but he was also never the same with his visible faith. He still showed up for church, but that was about all. A couple of years after the newspaper thing, I invited him to join us again on our mission trip. He declined and said, “I’m not sure I’d be good at that anymore. The fire is gone”

In Charles Dickens’ classic, David Copperfield, Daniel Peggotty is an old seaman who took in his niece, Emily, as a small child when her parents died. He loved her as his own. On the eve of Emily’s wedding to an honorable young fisherman, she deserted her fiancé, home, uncle and life for David Copperfield’s best friend. She ran off to a life of ruin that spiraled to the brink of personal destruction. When she came to her senses, she was unwilling to return home because of her shame. Soon after her desertion we see Uncle Peggotty with a staff and sack on his back, an old man, leaving his home to wander throughout Europe, seeking his lost daughter to bring her home. As he leaves, Mr. Peggotty tells his housekeeper to place a lamp in the window always burning, just in case Emily should wander by and realize that home was waiting for her.

As doctors we are hard working, goal-oriented achievers who often assume that we succeed based on our own merits. As such, when we fail, we may wander like Emily outside of God’s purpose for years, believing that we do not deserve to come back home. We don’t necessarily become bad people; we just lose our sense of purpose within God’s Kingdom.

While we wander, God, like Uncle Peggotty, is in relentless pursuit. Not only does He follow us and call out our name, He leaves a lamp in the window so that as we wander we may know that home is waiting for us. In fact, rather than Uncle Peggotty’s lamp, God’s beckoning light for His wandering children is more like the Trace Adkin’s song:

Every light in the house is on;
Backyard’s bright as the crack of dawn;
Front walk looks like runway lights,
It’s kinda’ like noon in the dead of night….just in case you ever do get tired of being gone.

Our failings may well change us, and may even change the mission God has planned for us; but we can be confidant that God wants us home. And even after our failings, God’s presence and God’s mission is grander than anything our wandering has to offer.

Dear Father,
When I wander, bring me home. Put me back to work with You.
Amen

Sin Swings Two Ways

2010-10-26T05:12:00.000-07:00

Forgive us our debts as we also have forgiven our debtors. Mt 6:12

I felt pretty good about myself when I finished my morning walk today. I had reflected on my life and discovered that I had been faithful to my spouse, honest in my business, never lost a malpractice suit, never lied, cheated or stolen and never deliberately hurt anyone. I’m okay.

But by bedtime, God’s whisper was making me uncomfortable again. The Lord’s Prayer had teamed up with the 13th Warrior and opened my ears.

Each of us should periodically examine our lives and let God show us whether we are pleasing Him or not. It’s not about a scorecard, just an opportunity to refocus and return to the right path if we have wandered off.

Most of us look at our lives as good or bad based on the number of bad things we’ve done---our sins are actions we’ve committed that have been displeasing to God. But if we settle there, we will likely move very slowly toward becoming the people God wants us to be.

There is an interesting scene in one of my favorite movies, The 13Th Warrior, where the protagonist of the story is about to enter a major battle that could end with his death. As the battle commences he prays, “For all we ought to have thought and have not thought…all we ought to have said and have not said…all we ought to have done and have not done. I pray thee, God, for forgiveness.”

I have often wondered at the Lord’s Prayer in Matthew 6, where Jesus says “Forgive us our debts….” Jesus is clearly talking about our sins, but uses the word “debts” instead. What is He trying to tell me?

Many Biblical scholars have described sin as “missing the mark”. Perhaps Jesus is saying, “You can miss the mark in many ways. Sometimes you miss the mark because you fire the arrow where I told you not to aim. But very often, you miss the mark because you never let the arrow fly---the things I have wanted you to do with your life are left undone.”

When I evaluate my life with this understanding, I see the wide gap between the place that God would take me in my life, if I were willing, and where I now am. Such an understanding does not often lead me into guilt but certainly does call me out of complacency.

Dear God,
Help me to listen to You and move into Your will when You call.
Amen.

Times of Joy

2010-10-19T06:28:00.000-07:00

You have filled my heart with greater joy than when their grain and new wine abound. Ps 4:7

For some reason, when I started my run this morning my heart was as light as spring. Perhaps it was because the summer heat had finally lifted, or that my kids and spouse were okay for the moment, or that my financial budget was actually balanced or that I had no failing or angry patients--- an incredibly empty crisis bucket. I knew that moments like this are an aberration, that my joys will soon enough be interrupted by “normal” life and that all the pressures will soon return. But, for the moment, with eyes wide open, I choose to settle in the joy that God has given me and praise Him for the gift.

When we are hurting in life, we seek God in our pain and we find Him walking beside us with comfort, purpose, peace and even joy. As doctors, as humans, and as dreamers, with so many to care for and to love, we often live with pain. We spend much of our lives asking God to heal our broken dreams, change our twisted character, shelter those we love or bring joy into our pain---and He comes through.

But God also brings moments of joy to us when things are going well. Sometimes He just hands us a gift, an understanding that all is okay and our dreams can be realized. Sometimes life is good and we know it.

We can make two great mistakes when handed these gifts of joy.

One mistake is that we take such times in life and claim them for our own---all is good so God can take a break and let me ride this wave alone. We’re 40 points ahead in the fourth quarter so God can set Himself on the bench and let me run the plays.

Instead of asking God to fill our times of joy with His purpose and His power for His glory, we take ownership and use them for ourselves. What a waste.

A second mistake would be to blunt our moments of joy with the sadness of its transient nature. Sometimes we water down our joy because we look ahead and realize that life will soon be heavy again. We take the gift that God has given us and place it still wrapped on the shelf because we know it cannot last. What a missed opportunity.

God blesses us with times of joy during our life journeys to be used as C S Lewis described, “pleasant inns along the way”. These are times to be re-energized, to set down our load, to praise the Giver and surrender to His love as we dance in the moment. Hard times will certainly come again; but we can face them confidently, remembering our moments of joy, knowing that “weeping may remain for a night, but joy comes in the morning” (Ps 30:5). As my pastor often says, “The worst thing that happens to us will never be the last thing that happens to us.” Jesus and Joy is the last thing that will happen to us.

Dear Father,

Thank you for times of joy that burst into our lives and renew our spirits for the task You have set before us. Let us not grasp them as our own but hand them back to you for Your purpose.

Amen.

Gettin’ Personal

2010-10-12T05:25:00.000-07:00

Who, being in the very nature God, did not consider equality with God, something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. Php 2: 6-7

I rose from my seat on the low concrete wall to let the young man sit his blind sister in my place. The wall was pretty much filled with the seated homeless who had come for lunch, patiently listening to God’s word while waiting for the sandwiches and chips.

“If God didn’t want His best for us, he’d have kept on killin’ sheeps and goats and wouldn’a kilt his only son!”

The preacher was speaking the language of the homeless but he was speaking my language as well.

This preacher, raised up from the people he now served, was talking about a God who could have stuck with religious practice and let folks make out the best they could. Instead, our God went beyond religion and made it personal.

I couldn’t help but question my own life when I heard the “amens” around me. As we ask God to work through us to redeem His world, have we, with Him, moved beyond religion and made it personal?

Religion gives money and that’s good.

Religion prays and that’s good.

Religion meets with others to worship each week and that’s good.

Religion seeks to bring people into the church and that’s good.

Religion is good, but it only goes so far. To transform people you’ve got to get personal.

‘Personal’ means touch and ‘personal’ means risk.

If we are going to get personal in our service to the King, just like Him we’ve got to touch and we’ve got to risk.

When was the last time I touched a lost or broken person with love and with a longing for His redemption?

When was the last time I risked reputation or a painful loss of time to touch the life of one whom God was seeking?

When was the last time I went beyond “killin’ sheeps and goats” and made it personal?

Dear God,
Thank you for the religion You have given us that provides structure and organization to our faith in a world of chaos. Help me to move beyond the form of faith to get personal with You and with those You seek to save.
Amen.

Consider It Joy

2010-10-05T04:57:00.000-07:00

Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds. Jas 1:2

He’s a friend and a patient. We were sitting in my examining room talking of his physical difficulties, resulting from a previous cancer and progressive pulmonary failure from interstitial fibrosis.

“I know this is hard for both of you,” I said.

“Sure it’s hard,” he said. “But we still have our time together every morning with the Lord.”

His wife wore the sweetest smile when she added, “He still brings us joy.”

Lots of folk speak about God and suffering. Those who haven’t suffered speak academically with untested theory. Those who know not God speak of things they cannot understand, whether they have suffered or not. There is one authoritative human voice regarding God and suffering and it’s the voice of those who both suffer and know God. All others speak with incomplete knowledge unless they speak from the Scriptures.

I occasionally hear a voice that says, “I gave up on God because He did not come through when I hurt so bad.” I respect that voice and seek to understand God’s activity in their pain. But, far and away more often, I hear the words that this loving wife laid as a blanket across the pain of her shared suffering, “He still brings us joy.” These are words spoken with authority.

We all will suffer. Jesus told us that. Suffering hurts. We should not minimize our pain or the pain of others. In the midst of that pain we could spend a lot of time conjecturing why a good God lets innocent people suffer. I’m sure this sweet couple must have asked that question at least once.

Or, we can marvel at a God who takes the salt from our tears and fashions it into joy.

Dear God,
There is much that I cannot understand in this world. I accept the pain of this world without understanding it. Just so, I accept the witness of hundreds I have known who have found your presence in their pain and lived with joy in spite of their suffering.
Amen.

Ambassadors for Christ

2010-09-29T06:58:00.000-07:00

We are therefore God’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. 2 Cor 5:20

We were chatting over coffee at 6 AM in the doctor’s lounge. She had a gall bladder to do and I had a hernia repair. Somehow we had slipped into a conversation about our personal witness and how hard it is to find the right entry point for the Gospel message.

“And yet,” she offered, “Just the other day I was talking with a resident about conflict of interest and out of me came, ‘You know I’m a Christian and my faith is all about God’s sacrifice for us. We are supposed to serve others the same way.’” She paused, “Now where did that come from?"

This task we have been given to share our faith is at the same time both incredibly complex and profoundly simple. We make it complex when we look at it as a human endeavor that depends on us. As such, it frightens the pants off of some doctors. When we consider it like a complex surgery to plan, we examine the setting, the timing, the relationship, the words, the reaction and the results. Witnessing for Christ is life and death stuff---eternal life and death stuff. And it’s on our shoulders; in some ways, perhaps.

I have been trained in many excellent evangelism programs and symposiums. Each has helped mold me into a better communicator of the Cross. Many people come into eternal life through God’s people using the Four Spiritual Laws, Evangelism Explosion, Saline Solution and METS. Thank God for those who developed these methods. Just as certainly, people are drawn toward faith in Christ when hearing spontaneous comments from Christian doctors at the bedside or in the doctors’ lounge. Thank God again. Whatever the method, God’s lost children come home only because He is present and He speaks. All salvation is all God, and He has chosen to use us in His process in different ways depending on the lost child.

Evangelism methodology is helpful to better mold us into useful instruments for His Spirit and we should gain all the training we can; but more than that, I am convinced we should seek:

1. A heart that longs to show God’s lost children the way home
2. A daily prayer life that begs God to use us as salvation instruments
3. An ear that listens constantly for His whisper when we walk among our colleagues and patients
4. A willingness to speak when He leads
5. A life of love that validates His words
6. A peace that comes from trusting Him to do His work

Dear God,

Thank you so much for the privilege to be used in Your great work of reconciliation. It was your death on the Cross and it is your Power that brings the lost sinner home. Let us listen and live and speak as You lead.

Amen

A Problem of Pride

2010-09-21T06:10:00.000-07:00

I came to you in weakness and fear, and with much trembling. My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the spirit’s power, so that your faith might not rest on man’s wisdom, but on God’s power. I Cor 2:3-5

I was watching television news when the call came on my cell phone. One of my patients was just letting me know that he was not coming for his appointment the next day.

“Dr. Lynch is sending me to another doctor who has had more experience than you with this kind of problem.”

He was nonchalant as if this made perfect sense, though I knew the new doctor and knew that his expertise was less than mine. I started steaming inside, not so much at this patient, but at the nerve of Dr. Lynch to refer one of my patients away.

“I wish you well with this new doctor, John; but don’t think you are going to him because he has more experience!”

Why does this beast of pride keep waking up when I know that it should slumber forever? I have given my life to the Lord and live for Him. I know that personal pride can destroy my witness; but here I go again. God cares that I do the best I can do to help others as a doctor, but He doesn’t need for me to compare myself to others in order for Him to be glorified. In fact, it works the other way.

“But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong…therefore, as it is written: ‘Let him who boasts boast in the Lord.’ ” (I Cor 1:27-31) But here I go, trying to appear wise and strong compared to other doctors.

Obviously, I missed an opportunity to show Christ to this patient. How can I do better next time?

When Roman emperors entered their city in triumph after a great victory, as the whole city erupted in praise, they would choose a slave to stand behind them and whisper in their ears, “You are but a man.”

As I walk through my day, trying to allow Christ to shine through me and suppressing my pride, perhaps it would be good to hear the Apostle Paul whisper into my ear, “You have already died.”

I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives within me. (Gal 2:20).

Dead men don’t need to defend their pride and Christ can do fine all on his own.

Dear Father,

Please empty me of pride so that my face does not obscure the face of Christ,

Amen.

More Beautiful Than Ever

2010-09-07T05:06:00.000-07:00

Husbands love your wives as Christ loved the Church and gave himself for her.
Eph 5:25

When I was running today, the realization struck me that I am more in love with my wife than ever before.

That’s a big statement after 37 years of marriage. Over those years of fun and heartache and passion and distance, we have had some great romantic moments, but more than those I love her now. Why should that be?

Certainly, she is beautiful, more beautiful now than ever.

Certainly she cares for me in wonderful and sacrificial ways---and I hope I do the same for her.

Certainly, she is intelligent, compassionate, skilled and fun to be around.

Certainly, we have passed through great sorrows together and come from those dark times closer in spirit.

But there is more.

I think the reason I love her more than ever is simply a blessing from God. It’s a blessing undeserved, a blessing of grace and I thank Him for His gift.

It may not be coincidental that this expansion of love has come as she and I have learned to walk more deliberately together in following God’s will, as we have held hands down a common road, seeking the same mission in life; hearing God call in the same direction and following together.

It has not always been so. During most of my days I chased after my perception of God’s will and dragged her along with little concern for whatever plan God had intended for her life. But over the past few years God has clearly shown me that, as her spouse, I should sacrifice my dreams for hers---or better yet, together we should seek a common dream from God. We have, and now I love her more than ever.

There’s something about charging together where God beckons that makes a marriage hot. I never really hooked into that until I listened for God’s call in my spouse’s heart.

Dear God,
Just as You have made us one, help us seek Your direction together. Help me set aside my individual dreams for the dream You have for both of us.
Amen.

God Is Faithful

2010-08-31T06:51:00.000-07:00

About 14 years ago, we found out that our first child, Luke, was going to be born with spina bifida. Luke was born with a pretty large opening in his spine from about L2-S1.

Initially, he did fairly well. He went through the usual surgeries that these kids have ( closure of his back at one day old, VP shunt placement with multiple revisions, etc.), spent a bunch of time in the NICU, but was able to come home I think, about 3-4 weeks after his birth. The roller coaster of the first few months started to level off and eventually we were able to start some great PT and OT, hopeful for the progress we might see. He did make progress until around his 1st birthday when he started developing symptoms from an Arnold-Chiari malformation of his hindbrain. This led to surgical intervention on his upper cervical spine, which was initially quite successful, but as Luke continued to grow over the next year he became more symptomatic.

He eventually developed more swallowing and breathing problems from the compression on his hindbrain and passed away when he was about 2 and a half years old.

There's much that can be said about the death of one's child and the seemingly lack of God's dramatic intervention.

When I tell people about our time with Luke I say that it was the hardest time of our lives, but in a sense it was also the best time in our lives. It was good not only because we had the privilege of having Luke with us on this earth, but also it was a time when we were completely dependent on God just to make it through each day. As we go about our daily activities it's easy to forget that "in Him we live and move and have our being." It's easy to think that we're in control of our lives. But this was a time for us when we painfully realized that we couldn't control anything. Luke's progress or lack of progress was completely out of our hands. We couldn't even depend on Luke's next breath. So we were forced, and I mean forced to depend on God. And He seemed to show up each day. It wasn't always pretty, but somehow He helped us manage not just from day to day, but hour to hour. Looking back, I can honestly say that this was a time when we felt God's presence i! n our lives more than we ever had before or since. To paraphrase C. S. Lewis, pain was truly God's megaphone in our lives. And for this, we are truly thankful.

Rod and Sharise Woerther

Amen

The Right to My Own Identity

2010-08-24T12:13:00.000-07:00

Though I am free and belong to no man, I make myself a slave to everyone to win as many as possible…I become all things to all men so that by all possible means I may save some. I Cor 9: 19-23

Jarrett Moulder has been praying for his partner to come to Christ. Although not a Christian, his anesthesia associate, Raymond, is a good, moral man who lives alone. For weeks, Raymond has been asking Jarrett to join him for a drink after work. Jarrett hates to do anything after work except get home to his family; besides, he has never enjoyed alcohol.

One of the great demands in our age of marketing, politics and computer images is our right to be authentic. We long for that in the people we befriend, and we want that for ourselves. As Sammy Davis Jr once sang, “I’ve gotta be me”.

In many ways, this desire for authenticity is God given and within God’s plan for our living out the Gospel. Our character should always reflect who we are as God’s children. Our personal faith should be evident to our patients and our colleagues. Our ethical and business discussions should be as biblically grounded as our spiritual lives.

On the other hand, as the Apostle Paul tells us, there are times when we should surrender our rights to our identity. When our rightful identity might cause another Christian to stumble in his/her faith, we should deny ourselves that authenticity. There will also be occasions when we should not choose to live out our authentic preferences but instead choose to act in an uncomfortably alien manner with the purpose of bringing God’s lost children home.

“I’ve gotta be me” is a strong ethic for the Western world, but, as Oswald Chambers put it; “The essence of sin is my claim to my right to myself.”

When is the last time I set aside my right to authenticity so that some colleague, friend or patient might come to know Christ?

Dear God,
Let me not live “me” to the world. Let Christ live instead. Amen

It’s the Questions That Count

2010-08-17T05:22:00.000-07:00

For a man’s ways are in full view of the Lord, and he examines all his paths. Pr 5:21

As we move through life, doctors and students with overwhelming schedules, fully committed to many good things, we sometimes lose sight of the road that we, as Christians, had once planned to travel. In my life as a doctor, I have often found the best signposts to be questions that, once answered, tell me if I am on the right road.

How have I divided my life between church, family and practice?

How is my devotional life?

How have I divided my money? How much is enough for me and my family?

How am I telling my patients about God’s love?

How am I telling my colleagues about God’s love?

How am I serving the poor, the medically deprived, and the underserved?

How well have I protected myself against sexual infidelity?

How well have I protected myself against greed?

How do I handle patient rejection? How have I faced malpractice?

In health care reform, for whom am I most vigorously advocating?

How am I taking biblically ethical stands in my practice?

Have I found a channel for mission service, overseas and to the rural and inner city poor?

How do I support young doctors spiritually and emotionally as they enter this world?

How can I stop and listen to what God is trying to tell me?

How much do I love Jesus?

Perhaps if these questions popped up on my calendar on the first day of each month, I would more clearly see God’s path and try to step back on it where I have slipped.

Dear God,

You know the questions You need to whisper in my ear. Speak them loud enough to sound above the roar of my busyness, so that I can choose to hear and follow. Amen.

Praying with Patients

2010-08-10T07:22:00.000-07:00

Is any one of you sick? He should call the elders of the church to pray over him and anoint him with oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well. Jas 5:14-15

About 3 years ago, I felt it on my heart to start praying regularly with my patients. I am an interventional radiologist performing liver directed therapies on patients with very advanced cancer. One morning in my Christian small group, a colleague challenged me to pray with my cancer patients that day. I agreed and decided to begin. We prayed about it together and I went to work.

My first opportunity was a woman for whom I was planning radioembolization of metastatic liver tumors that were causing pain. As I was consenting her, I wanted to pray with her, but instead I chickened out and went back to dictate some cases in another room. Five minutes later, my nurse called me back into the interventional suite. She told me that the patient did not want the procedure until I said a prayer with her. I was flabbergasted. I have performed over 10,000 procedures and not one other patient has asked for me to pray with them. God was watching and was faithful to prod me along. I got the message. Since that time, I regularly pray with my cancer patients.

Charles Nutting DO

Is prayer with patients beneficial enough to overcome the fear of rejection that sometimes comes with offering it? I suspect Dr. Nutting would say it is.

Many doctors, from their experience, can describe the amazing bonding that occurs between a doctor and a patient or a doctor and the patient’s family because that doctor, unlike all others, took them to the Lord. Such bonding is valuable in medical decision making. Patients and their families know that they can trust this doctor, and that they are of more importance than their bill or their biology.

Besides this, praying with a patient reminds the doctor of the truth of life; that God loves and cares for this patient. That each patient encounter is a divine appointment where God is planning an eternal work.

Prayer with the doctor reminds the patient where their security really lies. However good the doctor skills, our lives are ultimately dependent on God’s hands; and God’s hands will not let us go.

Probably most important, God honors the invitation of prayer. He actually draws near when we call on Him and His power is present, guided by His will to touch and heal, to place within the illness eternal significance, for His glory and for the redemption of our world.

Dear God,
Help me listen for Your whisper as I care for my patients. Give me the opportunity and the courage to pray with them when You lead. Amen.

Conditions

2010-08-03T06:31:00.000-07:00

But whatever was to my profit I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. Php 3:8

Rusty was serving God in a part of the world that was dangerous and uncomfortable. I had known him when comfort had been a significant requirement for life.

“People ask us why we are working in ____. It’s simple. We just took away all the conditions we had placed on God as a requirement for service ... ‘not there, with this security, this financial package, this side of the ocean, this language, this long, etc.’ When we removed all of our conditions and just asked God to use us how he wanted, we ended up where we are; and we are happy to be there.”

Rusty and his wife have settled into a life where their joy is not controlled by circumstances. That which had been so important for satisfaction in their lives is no longer important. How many of us wish that we could face each day with satisfaction, regardless of the threats to the life we had planned? Rusty found the key, it was not by gaining more control over his life; it was by letting go of the reins and handing them over to God. It was by removing all the conditions he had set before God and saying, “Whatever it takes, place me in Your will.”

What conditions have I set before the Lord? “We can go this far … but no farther”. What blessings, what achievements does God have waiting for me beyond the boundaries of my conditions?

Dear Father,
Place me in this life where You have prepared a plan for me. Let me never limit Your glory by my conditions. Amen.

The Last Word

2010-07-27T05:24:00.000-07:00

He will keep you strong to the end, so that you will be blameless on the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. God, who has called you into fellowship with his Son Jesus Christ our Lord, is faithful. I Cor 1:8-9.

She waved as I looked back from the nurse’s station. I had just told her that her cancer had returned.

“It will be okay, Doc. It will all be okay. Either your medicine will cure me now or God will cure me in heaven.”

There are so many events in our lives that tear down our hope. For many it is an illness that leads toward disability or death. For others it is a business failure or a personal relationship failure or a child who is trapped in self destructive behavior. For some it may be a sin that will not let go. Sometimes we reach a point in our lives where it appears that nothing will be well, ever again.

The first book ever written in English by a woman was the Sixteen Revelations of Divine Love. Written by Julian of Norwich during a period of intense suffering, the book is a reflection on the visions God gave to her as the suffering continued. She wrote from within that suffering, “All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well.”

The Apostle Paul put it this way:
“He will keep you strong to the end, so that you will be blameless on the day of our Lord Jesus Christ.” I Cor I :8, and,
“He who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.” Php 1:6

Whatever brokenness, failure, loss or hopelessness we are now experiencing, there is a great “All is well” at the end of our lives, and it is dependent neither on our capabilities or the world’s circumstances. Jesus will be the one to make all things well.

Dear Jesus,
Let me trust You. Amen

Forgive

2010-07-20T05:04:00.000-07:00

Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. Col 3: 13

We had served together in ministry as doctors on mission for two decades and more. Then someone stepped out of line and feelings were hurt. Communication by e-mail garbled the issue and made matters worse. Soon Christian doctors were accusing Christian doctors and using spiritual language to hurt one another. The ministry and mission hung over the precipice. The key to holding the ministry together now had little to do with the original problem. The key now was forgiveness. Some refused to forgive without repentance and some refused to repent.

It’s tough when someone out there in the world hurts you. It’s even tougher when someone in the Kingdom of God causes the pain. The scenario above is repeated over and over again among Christians trying to do God’s will, usually when one or more is out of synch with God’s Spirit.

There are biblical ways to resolve such conflict with prayer and personal discussion in the presence of other Christians who seek God’s will in an objective way. Methodology can be developed to work around most disagreement and to negotiate differences in understanding. But, eventually, all such conflict requires forgiveness. It’s the same in Christian marriages and for Christians who partner in business ventures.

Forgiveness is always costly. One cannot forgive without letting go---and letting go of pain you have held close is costly. Forgiveness seems to work best when both parties see the light and understand their individual mistakes and repent and ask for that forgiveness.

Sometimes that happens and sometimes that doesn’t. Sometimes there is no understanding and no repentance. Then the choice is to end the relationship---a marriage, a ministry, a mission---or to forgive without repentance. Sometimes the relationship should end but sometimes we know that God is telling us to forgive “seventy times seven” and forgive without repentance, “for they know not what they do”. Sometimes forgiveness is foolish, like the Cross.

Dear God,

Help me to forgive the hurt I feel. Let Your love fill its place. Amen

Indiscriminate Giving

2010-07-13T05:00:00.000-07:00

Give to the one who asks you, and do not turn away from the one who wants to borrow from you. Matt 5:42

He stopped me in the parking garage as I was rushing to my car from an early morning medical conference. His name was James and he stuttered so badly that it took 30 seconds to force out each sentence. He was polite and apologetic and smelled of the street. Eventually he asked for the ten dollars he needed to spend the night in a Christian mission. After I gave him the money, he hugged me against his sweat and told me to wash my hands since I had touched the dirt of his skin.

This idea of giving is profound. Sometimes it seems as simple as reaching into your wallet and handing a ten to a guy on the street. But even then it’s profound. While deciding to reach for our wallets, a host of conflicting thoughts swim through our brains, like, “He’s just going to use it for drugs”, or “If I give to everyone with their hands out, where’s it going to end?”, or “He probably deserves the state he is in.”, or even “What if this were my son?” Giving always involves uncertainty. Giving always comes with the risk that we may lose our money to an unworthy cause or that the recipient may use it for personal harm.

Jesus understood all of this complex thinking and made it simple, “Give to the one who asks you.”

I’m sure He was not talking to us ... He was talking to Kingdom people, those who choose to follow Him with reckless abandon.

What if it really is as simple as Jesus put it? What if He really meant what He said? What if all these questions about risk and loss and benefit are less important than the giving itself? What if our giving makes us trust God with our losses and forces us to trust Him to benefit the one who receives our gifts? What if this command in Matthew encompasses far more of our lives than an occasional beggar who catches us on the street?

Dear Father,

Help me to trust You with all You have placed in my hands. Help me to let go when You ask for it. Amen

The Power to Deliver

2010-07-06T05:24:00.000-07:00

You yourselves have seen what I did to Egypt, and how I carried you on eagle’s wings and brought you to myself. Ex 19:4.

I was seeing him for a liver cancer he developed from years of hepatitis C. Ever since his military days he had abused drugs, leading to his chronic infection. A wooden cross hung from his neck, lying crooked against his faded sweatshirt.

“Are you still using intravenous drugs?”

“I’ve been clean for 3 years,” he said. “I found Christ and just stopped

This is not a commentary about the best way to break free from drugs; it’s a commentary about the power of the Cross. The same Cross that delivered me from a self-centered-life-headed-nowhere has the power to deliver from drugs and from greed, pride, cancer, pornography and wasted lives of all description. I’ve personally known individuals trapped in each whom God has delivered through a relationship born at the Cross; which leads to two questions.

What about me? What has wrapped its chains about me such that I cannot free myself to live the life to which God has called me? Beautiful chains like self-fulfillment, financial security and relational love can weigh us down just as effectively as the ugliness of this man’s past drug addiction.

What about that one I love? My child; or spouse, or friend or patient, wrapped in self-fashioned chains now sinking them into waters of despair or emptiness?

While we are taking advantage of every social system and drawing upon all the encouragement or will power we can muster, we need also to face the central problem in destructive behavior. The central problem in destructive behavior is an unsatisfied hunger, or an emptiness we cannot fill. Only Christ can satisfy that hunger or fill that emptiness. Social systems can sometimes break the chains, and we should use them to do so; but chains broken still leave us with the same emptiness that needs filling.

As C. S. Lewis put it, “God made us: invented us as a man invents an engine. A car is made to run on petrol, and it would not run properly on anything else. Now God designed the human machine to run on Himself…God cannot give us happiness and peace apart from Himself, because it is not there. There is no such thing.”¹

The Cross’s power to deliver comes when God’s presence fills our emptiness, satisfies our hunger, fuels our engine and transforms us from orphans begging for crumbs, into children feasting at the table.

Dear Father,

Deliver me into your perfect plan for my life. Deliver those I love. Let Jesus fill the void.
In Christ alone,
Amen

1. C.S. Lewis. Mere Christianity. Harper San Francisco. 2001. P 50.

Buck's Way

2010-06-29T06:09:00.000-07:00

I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. II Tim 4:7.

I was in standing in the chapel, ten minutes from addressing the graduating Christian medical and dental students. Pam Rusher called my cell phone and told me that her husband, Buck, had just died. Buck Rusher was a surgeon and friend who practiced in Arkansas for many years until the Lord called him and Pam to serve Him in Mongolia as medical missionaries. They did so with joy. A brain tumor brought him home and took him to Heaven. As I moved from the phone to the pulpit and shared with those new doctors, I was speaking from Buck’s life.

Buck Rusher has completed his race and won the prize. What can we see in his life that will help us as Christian doctors do the same with our lives in a world with so many distractions? What are the key principles for the Christian walk that will allow me to complete my race in a way that pleases God? These six apply whether times are good or times are hard.

Focus: “Therefore holy brothers, who share the heavenly calling, fix your thoughts on Jesus.” (Heb 3:1) We are created for the purpose of knowing and loving God. Whatever the distraction: success, failure, sin, relationships, sickness or pain, when we take our eyes off Jesus, we are in danger of losing our way.
Mission: “You will be for me a kingdom of priests, a holy nation…” (Ex 19:6) Either life just happens or we are here with great purpose in our lives. Buck and Pam know the truth. Our purpose is twofold: one is to live in relationship with God and His children; the other is to be the bridge across which others can find their way to our King. If we are living that mission, we are on the right path.
Surrender: “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.” (Mk 8:34) We have got to get the ownership question out of the way. Oswald Chambers put it this way, “The essence of sin is my claim to my right to myself.” Whether it is direction, or time or money, or reputation, or family, unless we surrender them to Him, we will take a wrong turn in the race of our lives.
Love: “God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in him.” (I Jn 4:16) Nothing works God’s way unless love is in it. And God’s love is not a warm feeling of affection. God’s love is willing and acting in a way that seeks the best for others. It is the Cross demonstrated in our lives.
Community: “There is one body and one Spirit—just as you were called to one hope when you were called—one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.” (Eph 4: 4-6) No one, not even a doctor, was ever called to be a solo Christian. We are called to Him as a community of believers and we will drift from Him if we are not deliberate in our fellowship with one another.
Faith: “By faith Abraham, when called to go to a place that he would later receive as his inheritance, obeyed and went, even though he did not know where he was going.” (Heb 11: 8) It was faith that took Pam and Buck to Mongolia. It was faith that calmed Buck’s fear when facing death and it was faith that allowed Pam to let him go. God does not lead His children through a tame and reasonable life. Only by faith can we follow.

Focus, Mission, Surrender, Love, Community and Faith: this was Buck’s way and he has recently received from his King the reward I long to gain, “Well done, good and faithful servant.”

Dear God,

let me remain grateful for the lives of those I follow and help me leave worthy footsteps for those who come after me. Amen

Driven

2010-06-23T05:01:00.000-07:00

I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. II Tim 4:7.

“I need to tell you, Jan, you are not as pleasant a woman as you used to be.”

“What do you mean?”

“I’m telling you this because I love you. You are always pushing; you don’t seem to care about the people around you. I saw you yelling at the nurses yesterday.”

“But they weren’t doing their job. You don’t understand. Practice in this town is cutthroat. I will never establish a surgical practice unless I work harder and better than any other surgeon in this hospital.”

“But, you’re a Christian.”

“That’s got nothing to do with this.”

There is a difference between Godly ambition and ambition born of this world. Doctors are fashioned out of ambitious men and women. Otherwise few of us would survive the decades of training and competition required to reach our final educational goals. Some of us use ambition to seek a medical specialty that requires stiff competition. Some use ambition to develop expertise and authority in a field of science we love. Some use ambition to build a private practice or to develop skills necessary to serve the underserved. None of theses goals or the ambition required to achieve them is necessarily outside of God’s will. Without ambition and the hard work it fosters, little can be achieved by any doctor over his or her lifetime.

How can we evaluate the ambition that drives us forward and discern whether it is Godly or worldly? The answer to this question becomes clear if we first answer three others:

1. Who is the beneficiary of my ambition?
2. Who is choosing the direction of my ambition?
3. What is this ambition doing to my character?

If we are choosing our own direction for our personal benefit and developing a worldly character, we are probably defeating God’s plan for our lives. The essence of the Cross is not gaining but giving, not leading but following, not becoming ourselves but letting Christ live through us. Many men and women of God have achieved greatness in the eyes of the world. If that greatness counts for the Kingdom, it has probably been molded by God through these three questions. Perhaps it is time to ask them of ourselves.

Dear Father,
Thank you for the skills you have given me. Let me run the race and push forward for Your Kingdom within Your plan, with Your character and for Your glory. Amen

Only He Who Obeys Believes

2010-06-15T06:34:00.000-07:00

This is love for God: to obey his commands. I Jn 5:3

It was a small discussion group of doctors organized by the church on Sunday nights.

He was barely forty with his practice now out of debt, and he was finally able to provide the income he needed to care for his family. “To be honest with you, I really do believe in Christ, but I just don’t feel the desire to seek Him like I once did.”

“Are you spending time in prayer and going to church?”

“Just like always.”

“What ever happened to the partner you used to tell us about, the one you felt God wanted you to witness to?”

“I almost spoke to him once, but it just never seemed right.”

What about the mission to Belize you felt called to take part in a few years ago?”

“The timing just never worked out.”

Dietrich Bonheoffer died in a Nazi concentration camp because he felt that God had called him to be instrumental in a plot to kill Hitler. Long before his imprisonment he wrote, “Only he who believes is obedient and only he who is obedient believes.”

Bonheoffer claimed that the two statements were inseparable.

Certainly it is our faith in Christ that draws us to obedience. Certainly it is only His grace that has saved us. Without that faith born from His grace, nothing is possible. But the growth of our faith is also dependent on obedience. Without obedience we will rarely place ourselves in a position where it is possible for our faith to grow. Peter would never have been convinced that Jesus could truly help him walk on water if he had never stepped out of the boat. Sometimes we think that by hearing the right speaker or reading the right books or being diligent in our morning devotions we will get God to rev up our faith enough for us to do great things for Him. But, if we never take the step of obedience that lies right before us---the word of witness, the mission trip, the sacrifice of money, the time spent in healing a relationship---if we never step out of the boat into the water where Jesus stands calling, our faith will become stagnant. We certainly need to continue our devotions and spend time in church and listen to great speakers, but we must couple these acts of worship with a step out of the boat if we want our faith to grow.

What is Jesus asking you to do this week, this day, this year? Just take that step; watch what Jesus will do with your obedience; watch Him grow your faith. “Only he who believes is obedient, and only he who is obedient believes.”

Dear God,

Let me take that one step for You, then grow my faith and let me take another. Amen

Listening Hard

2010-06-08T07:22:00.000-07:00

My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me. Jn 10:27

Jay and Holly Anderson had accomplished their success story through Jay’s private practice in anesthesia. As Christians, they were listening to God and heard Him call them into deeper service. Already they were involved in short term missions overseas, but felt that God wanted more of their time in dedicated ministry. On one of their mission trips they accompanied Bruce Wilkinson to Africa where Jay laid before Bruce his plans to transition over the next ten years into a life more focused on service for Christ. Bruce then asked Jay, “That sounds like a good plan, Jay, but why not do it now? Ten years from now would you rather be starting your time of service or looking back over ten years of impact” Holly realized that she could travel to Africa on the money she spent on pine straw for her gardens each year. The Andersons heard God speak and sold their large house, bought a small patio style house, sold Jay’s expensive guitar collection and reduced Jay’s medical work to four days a week. The fifth day was dedicated to ministry for Christ.

As Christian doctors we should be listening for the whisper of God. When He whispers, we obey, or at least we know that we should. For most of us that whisper is a fresh call to either service or relationship or witness in our present location and occupation.

Sometimes God chooses to call us out of our present occupation or location so that He might use us in a different way. Such change may bring excitement to hearts that yearn to follow, but God’s whisper is often then drowned out by voices shouting the complications that such change will bring. “The worries of this life, the deceitfulness of wealth and the desires for other things come in and choke the word making it unfruitful.” Mk 4:19. When these voices of the world speak we are tempted to adjust God’s plan to make it more practical and less painful with fewer risks.

When God spoke first to the Andersons, His directions were unclear and they began to time their obedience around their own reasonable practicalities. God then spoke a second time, saying, “Let’s do it on My schedule. I’ll take care of the complications.” Once God made it clear, they let go of their practical concerns and obeyed.

The Andersons got it right because they yearned for God’s will more then they yearned for security. And they listened hard. If we listen hard, it is God’s business to clarify and ours but to obey. “You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.” Jer 29:12.

Oh God, help me to listen hard so that You may be heard above the sounds of my world. Then help me obey. Amen

Time to Listen

2010-06-01T07:33:00.000-07:00

Be still, and know that I am God. Ps 46:10

She approached me after church, white haired with the vibrating voice of age. “Can I tell you a story?” she asked, and then described events around the dying of her husband. First, there was the TIA she experienced while her husband was in Hospice. Her children forced her to leave home and seek care at the hospital, where she remained for three days. One day, while awaiting her daughters’ arrival, she began to hear a most beautiful male voice singing the great old songs with a deep, rich voice: The Old Rugged Cross, In the Garden and How Great Thou Art. When her daughters arrived, she asked them to listen but they could hear nothing. Then, on the day her husband died, she was sitting alone with him and heard a thousand swooshes, like angel wings, as the love of her life breathed his last.

Isn’t it great that sometimes God opens up our ears to hear him speak, just to us? I do not doubt this sweet woman’s sanity. She needed to hear from God in a special way and he spoke to her with hymns and angel wings. I suspect that God speaks personally to each of us far more often than we think. I suspect that most of us spend so much time talking to God and listening to the world that God’s whisper is often missed within the roar.

Archbishop Desmond Tutu, winner of the 1984 Nobel Peace Prize, was recently interviewed by an NPR correspondent. When asked whether his spiritual life had changed over his many decades of service, he chuckled softly and said, “Yes, it has. I have learned to shut up more.”

As doctors we are always in a rush to make things happen in our professional lives. Sometimes we do the same in our spiritual lives, checking off a list of things we need to say to God, and things he needs to do for us before we rush into our days. Perhaps we need to shut up more. Perhaps we need a “timeout” at the end of our daily prayers in which we force ourselves to listen and require our minds to settle into his love.

Dear God,
Please let me stop and listen every time I come to you.
Amen.

Subtle Conflict

2010-05-25T06:57:00.000-07:00

Satan himself masquerades as an angel of light. 2 Cor 11:14

Dr. Mack was a new Christian doctor in practice. He started out like most doctors, referring patients for consultation to those whom his partners recommended. Gradually, his referral preferences drifted toward those who referred patients to him, realizing that these doctors would reciprocate. Then, one night his sister called him, asking for the best doctor to perform a procedure for her. After he had discussed the problem and made his recommendation, Dr. Mack realized that the doctor to whom he referred his sister was not the one to whom he normally referred his patients.

Conflict of interest is a subtle beast. None of us as Christian doctors would ever offer inferior care to our patients knowingly in order to increase our profits. But conflict of interest is far more subtle than that. It sneaks into our referral patterns as we consider doctors and diagnostic centers. It slides between our pens and paper when we order procedures and between the fork and beef when we eat a pharmaceutical meal. It slithers from doctor to doctor in the room where we calculate our business plans. We are rarely conscious that we have been influenced until we look back and see how our practice has changed.

How do we as Christian doctors protect ourselves from this subtle and nearly invisible serpent?

Be aware: we are vulnerable and we are sinners.
Remember our covenant: as Christian doctors we work within a covenant relationship to provide the best care always for our patients.
Be vigilant: we periodically need to reevaluate our practice patterns, including referrals, charges, frequency of visits and ordering practices.
Be accountable: if there are any areas of gray, seek counsel. Discuss it with your Christian colleagues. Call CMDA--our leaders will be happy to work with you to sort through the subtleties.

Dear God,

Help me to keep my patients’ well being ahead of my own. Bless my business that it may succeed in the way that You define success. Amen

The Freedom of Evangelism

2010-05-18T04:26:00.000-07:00

The first thing Andrew did was to find his brother Simon and tell him, “We have found the Messiah” (that is, the Christ). And he brought him to Jesus. Jn 1: 41-42.

My son and a few of his friends were sitting at a meal when Richard asked about our time as missionaries in Nigeria. Richard was entering medical school in the next three months. When he asked why we had spent those years in Africa, I explained that God had led us to work there and share his love through medicine. As we discussed the various religious beliefs we had encountered, Richard asked, “It was probably easier for you to convert the animists to Christianity than it was the Muslims, wasn’t it?” I answered, “We weren’t trying to convert anyone. Our job was to show them God’s love and to share our faith in Him. The rest was between God and them.” Afterwards, I pondered my answer a great deal. Did I get it right, both with Richard and in Nigeria, or did I miss God’s best plan for personal evangelism?

There is no question that God wants to use us in his work to bring his lost children home. This should be reflected in how we live, how we love, how we practice and how we speak. Our efforts at evangelism are to be a deliberate part of our lives each day. The methodology of that evangelism within healthcare is sometimes complex. Excellent guidelines for sharing faith within the boundaries of our profession have been developed by Christian doctors such as Dr. Yang Chen with METS and CMDA with Saline Solution. We would strongly recommend that all doctors and students learn from at least one of these programs.

My discussion above with Richard went beyond such methodology into the area of responsibility. As I accept the necessity of living my faith and sharing my faith, is it my responsibility to convert unbelievers and save the lost? I struggle with the question, not only theoretically but practically. Most of my life, I have settled into the freedom of the statement I made to Richard. My work in God’s transformation of the lost comes with living a life of active love and sharing my Christian faith verbally as the Holy Spirit leads. All saving and converting and transforming are totally left to God.

I believe in this interpretation of God’s plan, but with some discomfort. The freedom that comes from leaving the lost in God’s hands is wonderful, but it does come with the danger of personal disengagement---if God does it all, do I really need to focus much on the issue? Resting in his ultimate transforming power, might I transform my freedom into apathy?

Certainly, it is only through God’s power that sinners are saved, but he has chosen to manifest that power through Christians with deliberate evangelism, focused love, focused prayer, service and testimony.

Dear Father,
Please light a fire in my soul that burns with the desire to bring the lost to you. And then let me trust you to work in their lives and make them whole,
Amen

My Family, or the Poor?

2010-05-11T12:15:00.000-07:00

Jesus looked at him and loved him. “One thing you lack, “he said. “Go, sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.” Mk 10: 21

My wife of 36 years and I were spending a weekend at a medical educational meeting. One of our real pleasures on such excursions is to eat at fine restaurants and view the bay or the mountains as we enjoy really good food. I have neglected her a lot over my many years of practice and it feels good to provide for her extravagant experiences that we can share. At the same time, in the same real world, I realize that the dollars I spend for the wife I love might be life saving dollars in places like Haiti, where thousands have died and hundreds of thousands are homeless.

Jesus spoke about money far more than he spoke about many topics that we stress in our faith, such as sexual fidelity and personal evangelism. The Scriptures portray a special place in God’s heart for the poor and down trodden. As Christian doctors we walk through life with a continuous tension between using our money to bless those we love, and using it to help those in great need. My observation has been that Christian doctors seem to reside somewhere along a continuum. Some reject their responsibility to the poor and almost exclusively use their money for those they love. Others minimize the importance of caring for their families and almost exclusively use their money to care for those in greater need. Most of us reside somewhere along the continuum between the two.

How do we decide where we should live and give along that line? It’s not easy. I suspect that the more our hearts and money reach out to the underserved, the closer we are to God’s heart: not only because we help the poor He loves, but also because we are more likely to trust Him with other aspects of our lives when we don’t depend on our own financial capabilities to gain what we want in life. At the same time, I believe I honor God when I share wonderful dinners with my wife and spend time with my children on family vacations and provide them all with a comfortable home. I pray I am right in this. What guidelines can we use to walk through life with God, with money and without a constant anxiety caused by choosing between our families and the underserved? Let me list a few:

1. Accept as God-given my dual responsibility to care for my family and to care for the poor.
2. Since my natural drift will be toward my family, when I plan to spend on my family, I should consistently hold up the poor in my decision making.
3. Regularly ask God, “How can I give sacrificially to the underserved?”
4. Divide my family expenditures between “luxuries” and “necessities”. Consider a covenant with God to give to the poor an equal amount that I spend on luxuries, above the tithe.
5. Seek ways in my practice life to sacrificially care for the downtrodden.
6. Spend focused time every year caring for the poor, either domestically or internationally.
7. Ask God at regular intervals in my life if he would have me shift occupations and serve the underserved with a larger proportion of my time.
8. When God whispers, obey.
9. Within a life defined by these boundaries, enjoy caring for my family, even sometimes extravagantly.

Dear God,
Let me honor You with the money You have placed into my hands. Please bless my family far more than I could with my income. Let me give extravagantly to those in need. Amen

Fearfully and Wonderfully Made

2010-05-04T06:10:00.000-07:00

For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Ps 139: 13-14.

It was just another lecture on Hematology for the medical students. How does the human body decide how many red blood cells are enough, too many, too few? As I came up with answers for them, I was overwhelmed by the majesty of God’s design.

The simple answer to such regulation and growth questions in medical science is that this is just a matter of genes handed down from our parents. We get the genes from our folks that tell us how much blood to make. This macro understanding of biology fits well within a framework of accidental natural selection, but the real understanding of such biology is far more complex than that.

In making blood cells, for instance, it’s not simply that a certain mass of cells sends a genetic signal that says “stop” or “go”. In order to make blood cells, a whole host of perfectly coordinated fibroblasts, osteoblasts, fat cells and lymphocytes have to interact with blood cell precursors---to receive and send signals that match the body’s needs within a narrow range. Even location matters. It matters where precursor blood cells set up shop within the bone marrow, which neighborhood of host tissues nurture them at various phases of development. To find the right neighborhood, blood cells are equipped with homing mechanisms and adhesion molecules that move them about at exactly the right time. At each station growth factors must attach to receptors that signal multiple intracellular pathways to turn on or off certain genes that balance cell multiplication and length of survival. Hundreds of cells and molecules must interact in an ongoing, never ending, accurate way within a narrow margin so that we have exactly the right number of cells to deliver oxygen to tissues, fight infections and plug leaky vessels---each of these processes in turn requiring hundreds of coordinating cells and molecules. I study this science every day, and I am overwhelmed by the majesty of God.

I know that we have had millions of years for natural selection to get it right. But it is irrational for me to believe that the hundreds of complex interactions for each of thousands of body regulatory mechanisms have been guided by accident with no grand purpose in mind.

Dear God,I am overwhelmed by Your majesty when I see the mountains, and even more so when I study the science with which You have so intricately designed this body to think and love and serve. Thank you, Amen.

A Different Courage

2010-04-20T06:11:00.000-07:00

For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise ...I Th 4: 16

My fellow in training was standing next to me when I told Cynthia that we could not cure her cancer. “I know,” she said. “I am not afraid to die. I know that the Lord has prepared a place for me.” As we left the room, I prayed that the Lord would burn that picture into my fellow’s heart as I continue to pray for ways to bring him to Christ.

There is something compelling about a Christian who faces disaster. I have watched many of my patients who have no spiritual faith approach death with courage, but it always seems to be the courage of resignation. Cynthia’s courage, like that of many other Christians I have known, is different; in her I see a courage grounded in hope. Rather than a resignation to the understanding that all things must end, Cynthia is confident that she is headed somewhere. Instead of emptiness ahead, she is moving toward someone who loves her, someone she can trust, someone who will take her hand as she steps over death and lead her into a life worth living. This understanding of life might certainly appear foolish to my fellow, as it should to someone who has no faith in God’s love and eternity. But I cannot imagine that even the most ardent of atheists could have looked into Cynthia’s eyes at that moment and not wished that her words were true. Thank God that they are.

Dear God,
Thank you that our goal in life is You and that life with You will last forever. Amen.

Big Questions

2010-04-13T06:43:00.000-07:00

As Jesus started on his way, a man ran up to him and fell on his knees before him. “Good teacher,” he asked, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?”…Mk 10: 17-27.

It was a fairly common type of discussion between a doctor and his spouse. By expanding the breakfast room, we could fit more of the family around the table and enlarge the pantry to provide more storage space. Our discussion centered around building plans, affordability, interest rates, etc. “Would we rather spend the money on this or some other project for the house?” Everything fit and we decided that we could go ahead. Then my wife asked an additional question, “Okay, now that we know we can do this, how does it glorify God?”

Sometimes we miss the right answers in life because we don’t ask the right questions. Sometimes we think to ask the small questions, but fail to ask the big questions. The rich young ruler came to Jesus with a really big question, “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” Hopefully, we as Christian doctors have got that answer right and know that it is all about His sacrifice and not our merit. But, once we have accepted His gift of grace, life gets complicated in the part where Jesus tells the young man to, “Come, follow Me.” The rich young ruler never got that far, but we have. Jesus says the same to us, and for the rest of our lives this following demands some routine big questions in our every day decision making. Why don’t I ask them? As I make decisions in my life, I usually rely on my reason, my common sense and my conscience to lead me forward in the right direction. But, as I look back on my life, I am discovering that this approach has not always kept me on God’s path. My own desires are sometimes too strong---even for my Bible based conscience and well educated reason. I am discovering that I need to stop before major decisions and take a “time out”, like a surgeon in the OR. During that halt I need to ask big questions, like the one my wife asked, “How does this glorify God?” and other big questions like, “Will this draw others closer to or farther from Jesus?” and, “Do I trust God with the outcome?” and others. A great book was once written around the question, “What would Jesus do?”

Certainly, asking these questions won’t guarantee that I will make the right decision; I still may get it wrong because of my self-nature. But at least I bring it to the King and ask His opinion; at least I attempt to line things up with His ultimate purpose for my life, so that I might not waste time on pleasant side trails when the Lord has laid out a glory road for me to follow.

Dear Father,Let me stop before my major decisions and ask the big questions and let me answer them with my obedience to Your will. Amen

I’ve Never Heard of Him

2010-04-06T08:44:00.000-07:00

They came to Capernaum. When he was in the house, he asked them, “What were you arguing about on the road?” But they kept quiet because on the way they had argued about who was the greatest.

Sitting down, Jesus called the Twelve and said, “If anyone wants to be first, he must be the very last, and the servant of all.” Mk 9:33-35.

I was interviewing a new patient. He had completed surgery and needed follow up treatment for his cancer. Another patient of mine had recommended me to him. On his last day in the hospital with the surgeon, the surgeon had told him that he needed an oncologist and that he (the surgeon) had a couple he would recommend. The patient told the surgeon that he wanted me as his doctor. “I’ve never heard of him,” the surgeon responded.

This was not a problem for my patient, but I found myself spending the next five minutes defending why such a surgeon would not have heard of such a great doctor as I.

We are such difficult creatures for our God to work with, particularly as doctors. There lies within most of us such a strong desire to be known and respected. That desire is part of what makes us great achievers, but it certainly can get in the way of God’s work through our lives. When Jesus was turning toward the Cross He warned His disciples, “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself, take up his cross and follow me.” What is He saying about my desire to be well known and respected?

Barclay in his commentaries describes denying oneself as, “Let him say ‘no’ to himself.” Many people through the ages, like Mohandas Gandhi, have followed that rule and accomplished great things for other people, but I don’t think this is all that Christ meant with these words. Beyond the “no” to ourselves, there must be a “yes” to someone else. Christians say “no” to themselves in order to say “yes” to Jesus.

I like better the way Bonheoffer describes self denial as “to no longer be aware of oneself.” I was clearly aware of myself when that surgeon spoke. The more I push myself forward, even in my own mind, the more I am denying Christ’s presence in my life. The apostle Paul says, “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me.”(Gal 2:20) Thomas a’ Kempis, in The Imitation of Christ, wrote, “If you would learn and know that which is truly useful, love to be unknown and to be held in no estimation.” Is this a word for doctors too?

If these words of Paul and Jesus and Bonheoffer and Barclay and that fifteenth century monk are true, how do I get from here to there? How do I continue to be a great achiever and deny myself?

1. The first thing I need to do is to focus more on Jesus. He is alive in me and wants to show Himself through me without the distortion of my ego.

2. Secondly, there is the work of surrender. “I surrender my respect and recognition to You, my Lord. Let me steal none of Your glory.”

3. And then there is the deliberate hard work to serve my patients, colleagues, families, bosses and friends with the love of Christ, always pointing to Him and away from myself.

As John the Baptist put it, when we grow in our love for Jesus, “He must increase and I must decrease.” I must trust God to do great things with my life, letting Him define what greatness is, even as I let my own desire for and awareness of any personal greatness diminishes.

Dear God,
Please keep turning the sandpaper of life on my pride and rough it away until You shine through clearly. Amen

Time pressure

2010-03-23T07:41:00.000-07:00

My times are in your hands Ps 31:15.

Walter was doing his best to keep up with his patient load. Besides an overbooked schedule, two emergency problems had placed him farther behind. When it was Malcolm’s turn, Walter was wound tightly with the pressure of being over one hour behind in his schedule with ten impatient patients still to see. Malcolm had pancreatic cancer and just needed a pain medicine refill---a quick case to catch up some time. After writing the prescriptions and telling Malcolm goodbye, Walter’s thoughts of the next patient were interrupted by the words, “Oh yes, Doc, I forgot to tell you that my calf is hurting.” After a quick exam with few findings, Walter thought “DVT”, but thought it unlikely. Considering the extra time it would take to work it up, he reassured Malcolm, “Tell me if the pain gets worse or if your leg starts swelling.”

The next Monday Malcolm was admitted to the hospital with a pulmonary embolus.
Three months later, Walter received a notification of inadequate patient management from the hospital’s quality review committee.

What do we do when the pressures of time overwhelm our best judgment? There are days in our lives as doctors when we simply cannot perform all of our tasks with excellence because they pile up too fast for us to complete each of them well. The result is hurt patients, hurt families or inappropriate callousness or anger in our behavior. What steps can we take to minimize the damage and maximize the good that our time pressured existence brings to us?

We can:
1. Prioritize: We should take stock of all that we have crowded into our lives and make certain that the most important things are done well.
2. Simplify: Each of us needs to let go of at least one time consuming activity in our lives in order to accomplish our top priorities well. This may be at home or may be at work. At work this might even mean reducing our patient numbers with an expected loss of income so that we can do an excellent job for those we do see.
3. Surrender: Each morning as we surrender our other blessings to the Lord for his service, we should do the same with our time. We are foolish to think that his purpose depends on our scheduled plans.
4. Discipline: Once we have reordered the schedules of our lives in the best way we can determine, we will still face times when there is too much to accomplish in the time allotted. This is when we take a deep breath, hand the circumstance to God for his glory, and do the right thing with kindness.

Dear Father,
Thank you for the boundaries of time that teach me diligence and trust. Help me reorder my life so that it fits best into your schedule. Then help me to be content within the time frame you have planned for me.
Amen

Be Perfect

2010-03-16T05:20:00.000-07:00

Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect. Matt 5:48.

Bob sat across from me at our monthly McDonald’s breakfast time together. We saw each other almost daily, rushing past each other in the hospital, but this was our scheduled time to be friends. He was struggling with an issue in his life.

“I was raised to do everything well. That got me through medical school and it has worked well to build my practice. But I’m dropping all kind of balls lately. I have a patient I was working up for back pain. Before I could get the tests done, he was paralyzed from a cord compression, a cancer in his spine. I have another patient with a mammogram that was positive; the report was lost and I didn’t see it for three months. She was not at all happy. I missed my daughter’s gymnastic competition because an emergency came in. I feel like I’m failing everywhere.” I answered him the best way I knew how, “So, you want to be perfect, like me?”

As doctors we are hardwired to be achievers. God placed within us the character to do our best, to get things right---for His glory and for mankind’s benefit. As doctors, mothers, fathers, spouses, church members, we are called by God to excellence; and we expect that from ourselves. But sometimes we carry that expectation too far. Sometimes we expect perfection from our efforts and make perfect performance into an idol. If we choose do so, at some point that idol will topple over on us and cause us great pain, for we will never be perfect in this life.

There is a clear distinction between excellence and perfection. Excellence is measured by great effort. Perfection is measured by results. God cares about our effort but He does not expect perfect results. When Jesus calls us to be perfect in Matthew 5:48, He is not asking for perfect results; He is calling us toward wholehearted devotion to our Father in heaven. He wants us to do all things well for His glory (Col 3:23), to pour ourselves out in sacrificial service. He wants us to serve Him with our very best, but He expects for us to leave the results to Him (Phil 1:6).

We are called by God to strive for excellence by remaining well read and well skilled, by disciplining ourselves to do our best with each patient and with our families. God smiles on us when we pour ourselves out to serve Him with our best in all areas of our lives. But as we do, we must continually hand the results of these efforts back to Him. Only He knows how to use them well to write His story of redemption.

Dear God,
Help me to do my best with all You have entrusted me. Then let me hand over my best to You, so that you may accomplish that which You choose. Amen.

A Spiritual History

2010-03-09T08:49:00.000-08:00

Be wise in the way you act toward outsiders; make the most of every opportunity. Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone. Col 4:5,6.

He hobbled into the examining room on a cane, covered by a complex mixture of old clothes protecting him from the winter cold. I was seeing him for the first time and my initial impression was that he was polite, uneducated and very poor. My questions took us through his present and past history, bringing a description of his illness gradually into focus. He spoke more intelligently than I had expected from my first impression, but his speech was slightly slurred from an old stroke. I moved through his social history: lives alone, divorced, unemployed---consistent with my first impression. When I asked him about his religious faith, he replied that he was a Baptist Christian. Then he added, “I have a Masters of Divinity degree from New Orleans Baptist Seminary. For awhile I served for the Home Mission Board as a church planter in Philadelphia.” My understanding of this man and how I would work with him through his illness was changed.

I am frequently surprised when I ask my patients about their faith history. Many folks whom I suspect to be stalwart church goers have no religious faith at all. Others who seem unlikely to be interested in faith matters are sacrificial servants of our Lord. Such knowledge changes the way I understand their journey through their illness; it changes the way I can speak to them about their fears and needs; it changes the manner in which I seek to share my own faith stories with them.

I understand the importance of a spiritual history, and yet, I still hesitate when it comes to asking the questions---like I’m a stranger invading the patient’s personal space. Pity me if I let my insecurity prevent me from gaining a better understanding of my patient’s support system and a better picture of my place in God’s plan for his/her life.

There are many methods published in peer reviewed literature for taking a good spiritual history. I would recommend, and I personally use, a revision of the method described by Dr. Gene Rudd in his chapter, Testimony, in Practice by the Book, available through CMDA

Is faith in God important to you?
How are you involved in your faith community?
Is there anything we need to know about your beliefs that might affect your healthcare

Sometimes we never get past the first question; but I always learn, and am often surprised that my perception of a patient’s faith may be totally wrong. Not asking the questions would lead me toward less than adequate patient care and less than adequate cooperation with God’s Spirit as He wishes to work in my patient’s life.

Dear God,
Help me to be consistent in asking my patients about their faith. Sometimes it doesn’t seem necessary for their physical care plan, but let me not forget that it is always important for my work with You in their spiritual care plan. Amen

Facing Our Mortality

2010-03-02T07:03:00.000-08:00

If it is only for this life that we have hope in life, we are to be pitied more than all men. I Cor 15:19

My mother is a healthy 83, vigorous, vital and cheerful. This past Sunday we were together at an Advent Service, with the church youth presenting a beautiful chorus from the choir loft. Catherine, my daughter, herself a new mother, was with us as well. After the service, my mother turned to my daughter and said, “That made me sad tonight. I realized that I may not live long enough to see Elaina sing in that choir.”

It is good to face our mortality. We as doctors face the death of so many of our patients over the years and usually do so with a combination of sincere compassion and Osler’s equanimities. Like many Christians, we spend years in our churches believing that death leads to life, yet somehow avoid coming face to face with the possibility that we might be wrong, that it all may be a fairy tale, a hopeful wish that we project into our future. Apostle Paul understood such a possibility:

“For if the dead are not raised, then Christ has not been raised either. And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins. Then those also who have fallen in sleep in Christ are lost. If only in this life we have hope in Christ, we are to be pitied more than all men.”

“If” means we could be wrong.

But “if” is where faith grows. “If” makes us reflect on our lives and look back to where God has touched us. “If” requires us to remember the times that God has been more real than life itself to us, to times when He has come through in delivering us from danger, sin or brokenness. “If” allows us to look around at great Christian witnesses and weigh their witness against our fears. “If” drives us to pour over the Scriptures and find God’s Spirit speaking to us there.

When Paul faces the “if” and weighs it against his own encounters with God, he settles the issue with a confidence strong enough to cry out, “But Christ has indeed been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep…Death has been swallowed up in victory.”

Why does it matter that we face our mortality? Partly it is so we can move from “if” to faith. This coming to faith from within our doubts gives us a stronger hope in times of despair. Also, it changes the way we see our patients and colleagues; for, as we become confident of our own life after death, then we become cognizant that each of our patients and each of our colleagues is immortal through Jesus Christ, and that God may choose us to show them the way toward that immortality with Him.

Dear Father,
Remind me of Your great works and great presence in my life so that I may face the future with great trust and a bold testimony. Amen

Our Witness: Making the Sale

2010-02-16T06:16:00.000-08:00

You are the light of the world. A city on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead, they put it on a stand and it gives light to the whole house. Mt 5:14-15

I was checking out one of my fellows after he had seen a few patients in clinic. “That last patient pulled the Jesus thing on me,” he said. “What do you mean?” “You know, she told me about Jesus and tried to save me.” “Well, obviously her faith was important to her.” “I know, but I just don’t need others to tell me what to believe. I need to settle on truth as I see it.” “At least you know she cares about you enough to share something important with you, just like you might tell someone about your wedding and invite them to attend” “It’s fine to share; I just don’t like feeling like I’m a sale is being made.” Our conversation ended but our relationship is ongoing. I did not share my own faith at that encounter, using it instead as a time for God’s Spirit to work, praying for God to fit my witness in at his proper time.

It is not easy to share our faith with our trainees or colleagues. We work within professional and expectational boundaries that need to be respected, even as we earnestly seek to express our witness for Christ. We can abruptly cross those boundaries at times and hurt our witness, just as we can from fear refuse to speak when God calls us to--- with the same result. My personal experience and my interaction with most doctors suggest that we more often hold back from fear than we are too boldly abrupt. The fear of confronting a colleague with information they don’t want to hear and the concern that such a confrontation will affect their respect for us is a real hindrance to our witness. So, how do we balance appropriate boundaries with courageous witness when it comes to our colleagues?

I think first that our hearts need to be right. Do we pray each day that God will use us to live and speak to our colleagues the Gospel? Even if we don’t feel like it, do we ask God to use us anyway, because we love Him?

Secondly, do we have specific colleagues that we ask God each day to bring to Him through our lives? Do we pray specifically for these each day, such that when we encounter them, we remember that morning prayer?

Then, do we have ready faith flags and faith stories? Can we point to God in brief phrases and are we ready with brief stories of God’s goodness in our lives, when conversation allows them in natural ways.

Finally, are we listening intently for God’s Spirit with each encounter? “Show me, Lord, an opening for Your truth during this encounter. Let me be obedient to Your whisper and speak as You prompt.”

God’s business, God’s transforming power, sometimes through us, more important than our fears.

Dear Father,
Give me a burden for my colleagues. Let me listen for Your whisper and always be ready to speak Your truth to them, gently or forcefully, in love, as You lead. Touch them and transform them with Your love and power so that we may all be together with You in love forever. Amen

Let Go and Slide

2010-02-09T06:19:00.000-08:00

“Against all hope, Abraham in hope believed…” Ro 4: 18

Barbara was a patient of mine with breast cancer. I sat across from her in my examining room and discussed her widespread disease. She was 75 years old and knew that she could not live much longer.

“When I was a young girl, I remember a huge slide in my back yard; or at least it was huge to me. I remember sitting at the top of that slide afraid to let go; but I finally did. You see, my Daddy was at the bottom of the slide calling to me, ‘You can let go. I am here to catch you.’ I did and he did.

That’s how I am moving ahead with this cancer and what it brings. God is like my Daddy at the bottom of the slide. I’ve lived long enough and slid down enough slides to know that He is there to catch me.”

As doctors, as humans, we find ourselves at the top of a number of scary slides in our lives. Some of us have slid down so many times that we have peeled the skin off our backsides. Some of us are sliding now on those painful burns. For others, life has been pretty good and we think we may get through this playground of life with only a few minors scrapes and bruises. We may even imagine for a time that life will always be good to us. But that’s not the truth of life. For all of us, there will be scary downhill rides ahead until our Lord calls us home. How do we face our fears, and let go and slide?

For Barbara it was a matter of knowing who was waiting at the bottom of the slide, ready to catch her. “You can let go. I am here to catch you. You can trust Me.

You can trust Me with your past---‘Cleanse me with hyssop and I will be clean. Wash me and I will be whiter than snow.’ Ps 51:7

You can trust Me with those you love—‘I know whom I have believed and am convinced that he is able to guard what I have entrusted to him until that day.’ 2 Ti 1:12

You can trust Me with your direction—‘Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge him and he will direct your paths.’ Pr 3: 5-6

You can trust Me with your task—‘Being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.’ Php 1:6

You can trust Me with your future—‘I go to prepare a place for you…’” Jn 14:2

Life is sometimes very frightening and sometimes we cannot even see the bottom of the slide. But we do know who is waiting for us with His slide burnt arms outstretched. “You can let go. I am here to catch you.”

Dear Father,
Help me know that You are there to catch me. Amen

All I Have

2010-02-02T07:55:00.000-08:00

Give and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap. Luke 6:38.

I remember the time that we were raising funds for CMDA to build our campus in Bristol, TN. A Christian doctor I admire shared his personal story.

“Jody and I decided what we could reasonably afford for the campaign and pledged that amount. It hurt a little financially, but we felt good about it. God then spoke to us and we decided to give a bit more. It was enough that it hurt more to give that amount, but we committed. God spoke again and we pledged more and it hurt more. And then God spoke again. We decided it was His will that we give a large amount, an amount we could not really afford, larger than we had ever given to His service. We accepted His leadership and pledged that amount, and it began to feel good again.”

Each morning, as I surrender the rest of my existence to the Lord, I specifically mention “all I have,” intending that all of my material blessings should be surrendered to Christ that day. Over the years, God has impressed upon me that I have been surrendering far more in words than I have in action.

At different moments of our lives, the surrender of our material blessings may involve different understandings regarding the meaning of that surrender. It is probably unusual for us to hand the totality of that meaning over to the Lord at one time.

The surrender of “all I have” is a pie divided into three slices and actually points toward three interrelated actions toward the treasures that God has given us: service, frugality and trust.

Sometimes we get service right and place the money that God has given us into His hands toward Kingdom goals---evangelism, the care of the poor or the nurturing of His Church.

Sometimes we get frugality right and hold ourselves back from wasting God’s money on personal luxuries.

Sometimes we even get trust right and offer back to His service more than we can afford, or trust His hand when we suffer financial setbacks - understanding that our security rests totally in Him and not in our finances.

These activities are truly interrelated. There are times when we may wish to give to God’s service, but our lack of frugality has diminished the funds available for His work. Or, times when we may desire to serve Him financially, but our lack of trust prevents our commitment. Or there may be times when we are frugal, but then we use the savings from our frugality to serve our own pleasures.

“All I have.”

I long for the day when all three principles of stewardship show themselves fully as I live out my desire to surrender “all I have” to our King.

Dear God,
Please take all I have and use it for thy Kingdom even as You “give us this day our daily bread.” Amen.

Pursuing Joy

2010-01-26T08:12:00.000-08:00

Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable - if anything is excellent or praiseworthy - think about such things. Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me, or seen in me - put it into practice. Php 4:8-9

I don’t understand it. I built my practice; and raised my kids, and bought my lake house, and served as chief of staff, and published my research, and led the church through a building project, and remarried, and learned to wind surf, and wrote my novel, and weathered the recession and looked much better than my friends at our high school reunion. Why aren’t I happy?

A couple of years ago, when CMDA examined the absence of joy in the lives of many Christian doctors, we surveyed many of our leaders in community medicine and dentistry with the question, “Where have you found joy in your lives, both in your practices and outside of your practice?” Over two hundred doctors responded. We collated the answers and discovered five pathways toward joy that were consistently mentioned by many doctors. The importance of these pathways is that these have been proven in the lives of doctors to pave the way toward joy. If you are missing true joy in your life, you are likely to find it down one of these pathways and unlikely to find it if you travel in other directions.

If you wish to find joy in your life, other Christian doctors have found it in lasting ways through:

Service: serving patients out of love, regardless of their status; such service is often diluted by the ways we have chosen to practice.

Relationships: relationships with patients, colleagues, family and students; such relationships are often diminished by the rush to achieve.

Devotion: devotion to our Lord with an abiding relationship; this devotion is often stolen by our hurried lives.

Missions: domestic and international missions; these missions are often denied because of sacrifice rejected.

Personal growth: living out the heart desires that God has given us - in His way, for His glory; such God given desires are often ignored because we choose other rewards.

Much more can be said about each, but the importance today is that we use them to examine the way we do life. Does the way we spend our time and money place us on these pathways toward joy? Are we seeking joy down paths that lead only to diversion? What changes do I need to make in my life and practice to place me on these pathways? What do I need to let go of in order to pursue joy?

Dear God,
Please help me examine my life and find joy in the places You have prepared for me. Let me first seek You and then travel the paths You have chosen to grow your Kingdom. Amen

Joy

2010-01-19T07:05:00.000-08:00

As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. If you obey my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have obeyed my Father’s commands and remain in his love. I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete. My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. Jn 15:9-11.

Some doctors bug the stew out of you. Even though Jessie as a Christian doctor, she seems to smile too much and too often. She’s married, got kids, works daily in her practice and should have the same frustrations, challenges and tragedies that the rest of us do. But she doesn’t show the strain like the rest of us do, like I feel. She’s not normal. She seems filled with that joy the Bible talks about so often. I need some of that.

What is this stuff that Paul calls “joy”? Though there are many definitions and theological discussions around the word, one worthwhile definition seems fitting: Joy is the settled understanding that life is good. This definition certainly takes us beyond the happiness that depends on circumstances and toward the understanding that joy does not always reflect the happenings of life. Legitimate joy in a broken world cannot exist unless it is directed beyond the mundane to the Almighty. We who know this truth can find that joy by seeking an ongoing, abiding relationship with our Lord God. So, we do that as best we know how, and yet, we still often find ourselves frustrated or broken or numb with no joy in sight.

It seems that there are two mechanisms which drain our joy as Christian doctors.

Some of us are overwhelmed by the burdens of life.
Some of us are pursuing joy in ways it cannot be found.

Later devotions will explore these dangers, but each of us need to look today at our own lives and determine where our joy has gone.

What burdens have drained my joy? How am I seeking to pursue joy in my life? We need to ask these questions with our Bibles open at the foot of the Cross. We need to ask these questions within the community of other Christian doctors who are asking the same. Just by lifting these questions up to our Lord and sharing them in community, we begin a process that will lighten our burdens and direct us down the right road to joy.

Dear God,
We know that Your goal for our lives is joy. We know that our only true joy comes when we seek You as our greatest desire and pursue life in the way You direct us through Your people and Your word. Please help me to do so. Amen