doctor's life support

10th October: My Shepherd (10 cont'd)

My cup runneth over. Psalm 23-5

Are there practical as well as spiritual ways in which a Christian doctor's cup can run over? Whether we like to admit it or not, we are wealthier than many in our own society and rich compared with our third world colleagues. We must each decide before the Lord what sort of lifestyle will honour him most. Remembering how he lowered his standard of living for our sakes may encourage us to pour out more from our own cup to help others. For some, this could involve changing countries so that the contents may flow more readily into areas of greater need. (Why do so few apply for missionary service now? Could it be to do with wanting to preserve a full cup for our own use?). Those whose work is based, here or elsewhere, in a throwaway society, will find drugs or obsolescent equipment to be wasted by the ton. Many items, which could well be boiled up and used again elsewhere, are discarded after one use. One little diabetic girl, by rinsing through and saving her once used plastic syringes and needles, has sent several boxes of them `to the children in Africa' via her Christian doctor's contact. (That same doctor had been astounded, in an African teaching hospital, to find a record number of injection abscesses and then to see that the two needles being used for 100 patients were as blunt as nails.) Our trash may be useful, but our cash could do more -- not merely as handouts, but in supporting medical teachers and others, if we cannot go ourselves. Even so, material gifts are no substitute for prayer: the two go best together.

What, though, if the flow dries up and I seem uninspired either to give or to pray? I must turn again toward the Shepherd, recalling how it is he who has given all things richly to enjoy (and to share). It is he who freely gives, yet the scars on his hands, brow and heart testify to the price that was paid for all that costs me nothing. His cup was bitter, yet he took and drank it all down so that mine could be filled up. If such recollections do not fill my heart to overflowing gratitude, I must make or take time to come closer to him (and others of his), thinking and thanking, until once more my cup runs over.

O breath of love come breathe within us,
Renewing thought and will and heart
Come, love of Christ, afresh to win us,
Revive your Church in every part.

J Wade

Further reading: Rom 12:1-2. Heb 13:15-16

JG