I just had a great conversation over breakfast with one of my house-mates, Nathan, a PA student from Kentucky. He asked how to reconcile his spiritual convictions and call with his wordly obligations as a student and health-care provider. I could tell from our talk that he’s struggled with this issue. He was concerned with the fact that people die everyday and he doesn’t feel too concerned with their eternal destiny. Sure, deep down he has a hurt for those that may not get to heaven, but on the surface, he’s become cold and hard to death and suffering. He asked if this was ok or if he should be more burdened.
We talked about the difficulty of practicing medicine, especially in America where the attitude is not eternally-minded and our busy schedules keep us from focusing on eternal issues. We grow hard towards disease, pain, suffering and even death because it has become so routine to us. In fact, we even become cynical and bitter towards it at times because it often means more work and more frustration, especially in residency. One of the hardest things to learn to manage in residency is the overwhelming workload while still maintaining a sense of compassion and sympathy for your patients and their plights.
We discussed that there are really two ways to live out your faith. On one hand is the more practical, feasible and comfortable way. This way consists of using God-given talents to practice good medicine with sympathy and compassion but still not tackling eternal issues directly. This is probably what I do most of the time. I feel that God has given me gifts and a calling to medicine and I try to honor Him through it. But, between my busy schedule and my hard heart, I don’t take the time to address Spiritual things with my patients. This approach isn’t totally wrong but it’s probably not entirely right either. The second way of living out your faith is by complete obedience to the great commission, “go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you.” If one wholeheartedly sold out to this they would literally spend every waking moment preaching and teaching. While this is surely ideal, it’s certainly not practical or feasible in our world. But, maybe we should do it anyway though. I mean, that’s what Jesus commanded, right? Regardless, both of the above options are difficult to practice. One is noble, using God-given talents to serve His people but largely neglecting Spiritual issues whereas the other is ideal, continuously ministering to and discipling God’s people but ignoring good, but worldly things like family, work, health, etc. I think that both options are over burdensome to the believer. The first leaves the burden of not doing enough to secure peoples’ eternal fate and the latter leaves the burden of defeat and failure as it’s impossible for one man to win every soul. Even Jesus didn’t do this.
Jesus did, however, give us a great example of the practical way to live the Christian life, not neglecting our duties and callings of this world, but also not ignoring the greatest command in all of history and our true purpose as believers. The keys to this life are intimate fellowship with the Holy Spirit and service to the people around us. God tells us to “come unto me, all who are burdened and I will give you rest.” In addition, He sent us His Holy Spirit to be our teacher, counselor, comforter, protector and much more. He has provided amply for us to live a purposeful, fruitful life without the burdens of not doing enough or feeling pressed to do too much. What an awesome God!! Jesus’ life wasn’t entirely about teaching and preaching. Sure, he did it a lot, but there were many occasions where He simply served an individual and let that encounter lead the person to salvation. I think He worked in this way in order to show us that we can live a purposeful, fruitful life somewhere in the middle of the two extremes that were mentioned above. The key to living this on a daily basis is fellowship with the Holy Spirit. We must grow to have an intimate relationship with Him in order to have “Spiritual eyes” to see Spiritual issues in our non-spiritual world. This relationship leads to an awareness of opportunities around us and guidance as to how to handle them. Through constant fellowship with the Spirit we are continually reminded of our purpose on this earth as believers and then walk through the day “praying continually”, always ready to tackle a Spiritual problem. With this mentality and a strong desire to serve God’s people, we will be fully aware of their needs and ready to meet them where they are to address their destiny.
I’m thankful that Nathan brought up this subject. While it seemed that he was seeking guidance and wisdom from me, I was actually the one that was learning and growing. Discussing and confronting this issue served as a good reminder and challenged me to live a life more dedicated to the cause of Christ.
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