#3 Doctors and nurses are great!

If you’re ever tempted to lower the medical profession to ‘man’s vain attempt to heal’ think again. You’ve probably heard that old adage about ’sometimes God uses the medical profession to heal’, well I’d like to add that ‘Those healing, caring and restoring are people after God’s heart”.

I can’t credit my survival without honoring the men and women who did their bit to save me. I’m not taking anything away from God, I’m recognizing them as God’s hands and feet! I have never had the opportunity to see the value of a surgeon’s skill or the care of a nurse like I did in hospital. I was remarkably humbled. I don’t think anything I’ve done in my career comes close to the selfless work I saw in Auckland hospital.

What ’s that you say? They’re just flawed people like the rest of us? Well that just proves my point – for all their weakness, these people encouraged, held my hand, and carried me through many long weeks of suffering. I had people all day and night who helped me with pain, fed me, mopped my brow, washed my body, massaged me, tended my wounds, suctioned me, lifted me, fluffed my pillows, cleaned my clothes, wiped my butt – any number of heinous ongoing tasks they did with absolute dedication when I lifted my hand and made weird signals. Their smiles and empathy gave me courage, their encouragement got me out of bed, their laughter and morning curtain drawing was spiritual food.

I admit, the gulf of care I received goes in the “I can never repay them’ basket. How could I? Buy them a gift basket? Buy them all holidays to Fiji? Pay all their mortgages? What was the most I could do for them? Pray. I pray they are encouraged, I pray that they feel valued, I pray that God will pour out his salvation on them, I pray for their health and their families. I pray… well the depth of my gratitude is so great, I’ll have to pray in tongues because I don’t know what else to pray.

I thank God for the people that helped me through my treatment, He does heal through the medical profession and whatever there is they don’t know, they DO know how to care, and it was an absolute gift to me.

I occasionally have Godly dreams, or at least dreams with God in them. I can’t say they are directly from God, I’ll ask him which ones when I see him!

But one night I had been lamenting the sin in my life, you know the kind you wish you could do over, or take back, or emigrate to avoid, I had this dream:

I was fighting a war on a blackened hillside, I had suffered heavy injuries and I was retreating to stay alive. This side of the hill was completely in shadow, the sky was blood red, and flaming arrows were being shot from the enemy on the other side. Still in danger I came to the bottom of the hill and came to a deep lake. With arrows and shouts coming from the enemy, I knew I had to withdraw further, which is when I saw the boatman. He faded in, cloaked in mist, gliding on dark blue waters and I didn’t hesitate to leap on board his raft, as he took me away from danger. Further out into the dark lake we went until finally the arrows of the enemy splashed and smoked harmlessly short of my position. Finally I drew my breath and rested. As I looked up at the boatman, I recognised it was Jesus. He looked silently at me, and although I felt defeated and beaten, there was only peace in his eyes, and compassion.

I awoke, wondering why he hadn’t been more concerned about my defeat or my battle. I was grateful for the rescue and the rest, but I asked the obvious question, what now? Where’s my re-inforcements, my healing, or my victory? What happened after the dream, did he take me somewhere better? Did he drop me back on the shore in a few days?

As I pondered the dream, some aspects became clear. Obviously, the sin aspect of the dream (the fiery darts of the enemy) – I am in a battle with the flesh, with the world and with Satan. I’m not yet perfect and so I fall often (suffer injuries). The rest he offers is the finished work of the cross. In my dream I had forgotten this! I didn’t have to live wounded in regret or sorrow, I just had to get on the lifeboat! (I mean of course, repent and ask his forgiveness!) Fortunately, the victory in this battle does not hinge on my efforts. I have to come back to HIS work on the cross and the victory of HIS resurrection. One day the Lord Jesus will come in power and end the fight once and for all, but not yet. In the meantime he offers his rescue – forgiveness and restoration in him.

The old saying comes to mind “What would you do if you knew you couldn’t fail?” or ‘How would you fight, if you knew you were assured victory?”

I recently saw the movie ‘Paul’. Yes, I should have known better, but it had my name on it and it came out around my birthday, so I HAD to see it. (Don’t see it: contains sexual references, bad language, and goes nowhere). I had enjoyed a couple of Simon Pegg movies, so I was quietly optimistic. <Beware: contains spoilers>

Anyway, I was intrigued to see a very strong anti-God, anti-Christian message, which was really a throw away sub-plot. One of the characters, Ruth, was a one-eyed (literally) fundamentalist Christian and a creationist. In one scene, she argues the standard creationist arguments for life on earth, much to the disgust of the alien Paul, who gives her the standard evolutionary answers. Soon, in his frustration, he places his hand on her head and gives her some ‘Alien enlightenment’ about the origin of the universe, the truth about everything. She consequently sees that all that she has been brainwashed to believe (such as God) is make believe.

Atheists, like Richard Dawkins are still trying to do the same, so we can similarly be free of our superstitions and share in his wonderful enlightenment! The alien Paul obviously doesn’t believe in God, and Ruth later admits that he didn’t scare her, he “freed her’. Paul also cures her blind eye, and when she asks how he did it, he says “Evolution baby.” Talk about an evangelist!

Anyway, what is quite telling is that once Ruth was unshackled from her beliefs, she realised there was ‘no sin’. That’s classic! Can you hear the devil’s voice in that one? Plus she was now free to ‘curse and  fornicate’. That’s at least honest don’t you think? Even outspoken atheists don’t have enough guts to assert this sort of logic, saying that the rules and collective decisions of society help the individual and promote success or a happier life. I wonder if without God, she were now free to murder or steal or dis-honour her parents?

Luckily I had an encounter with Jesus. He did the real equivalent of an alien enlightenment flash on my brain, a bit like the Apostle Paul on the road to Damascus. I can’t explain it any better than that because I think differently now, and I can’t credit myself with having more brains than anyone else. I was the atheist who became a Christian and who sees the world through new eyes. I wouldn’t have even recognised the anti-god sub plot a few years back. Praise God he made himself known to me!

I prayed with a man seeking God, he had a belt buckle that had two menacing silver hands that locked around his waist. I prayed “Jesus, please show him who you are, he’s just like me, he believes and does the same things I used to, and I’m no better than him.” Anyway, for what its worth, the Movie Paul was the story of who I used to be, but never want to be again.

Last year I shared this little thought at Wave, and maybe it can bless those of you who haven’t heard it.

“Recently I took up knitting again. I made myself a cosy, big red scarf.

I’m pretty proud of it. I love it, in fact. Not because it is the greatest scarf ever made, just because I made it myself. I put the effort in to create it.

It reminded me of Willie’s message from the Jigsaw Series at Wave early in the year. He said that part of the reason God loves His creation is because he made it. He feels that same sense of pride mixed with affection over you and me, that I do over my scarf. In fact, He definitely loves us far more than I love my scarf!

Psalm 139 says in verse 13 that He knit us together in our mothers’ wombs. That is a wonderful picture of our creative God, intricately designing and forming each one of us.

Unlike me, God doesn’t make mistakes. God doesn’t have to go back and pick up stitches He’s dropped. He gets it right first time.

In craft circles they have a saying, “the touch of the hand,” which describes something handmade. It’s how you know someone has spent time and effort making an item because of the little unique differences between pieces that machines could not produce.

Each one of us has the touch of God’s hand, our own little differences that set us apart from other people. They remind us that we are all crafted by God.

My scarf well and truly has, “the touch of the hand”. It’s uneven in places, some stitches are bigger than others, and I even managed to add another row in halfway through. God’s touch is different. He gives us talents, gifts and creativity of expression to make us individuals. You are not just a reproduction off a factory line.

The common denominator is that we were all made in God’s image (Genesis 1:27). We have the stamp of the ultimate maker, who didn’t just make us and then leave us, but He cares about His creation day after day. “

#2 I’m going to live!

After the rather long morose pause (over Christmas) on the first point, I probably waited too long to make the second – life!

Yes, Once I came to terms with the first point (dying), I have no other conclusion than to continue living until further notice.

If you truly understand the fragility of life, or at least the fragility of OUR plans, you can appreciate the value of God’s plan. In fact through all this, knowing that my days were numbered, made it possible to realise that my unfinished plans are okay; not knowing all the answers is okay, even not being right all the time is okay. She’ll be right. (Or He will be right)

I guess this is my new Christian world-view. I used to be anxious if people didn’t come to my party, then I became anxious wondering if people would come to my funeral. Mark Twain said “There is no greater burden than an unfilled potential”. Well I got to a stage where not one thing I had planned to do was working and the chance of achieving them was drifting off into someone else’s life. Then I met Jesus, and he said “I am the way and the truth and the life.” This sort of lifted the pressure on my unfulfilled potential.

So I am a lot more content with living these days. The trial of “losing it all” took me well and truly through the ‘Oh no!” to the “Ah well”. This is not some internal peace based on inner calm or positive thoughts, its completely constructed on the promise that Jesus will get me home and get me there in his perfect plan. Try changing THOSE plans you bullys! (I don’t know who I’m talking to, but lets just say the bad guys)

The dying issue is not over if Christ gives you new life, but it certainly removes the anxiety about how it ends. I’m still working out the HOW today will be, but I don’t live every day as if its my last, I’m going to live every day as if its my first.

“Even the hairs of your head are numbered..” Mt 10:30