The Difference You Make

"...I was sick and you visited me..."  Matthew 25:35

God loves people, and those who know God share in his love of people.  The love that God has for people is not controlled by human thinking.  God's ways are not our ways, and his thoughts are not our thoughts.  There is no fragmentation in the character of God.  His character is not beset by arrogance or unrestrained hubris.  God is free to love us relentlessly even when we are sick.

While working as a chaplain intern I once visited with a patient who was in her mid-fifties.  Her major presenting problems included rheumatoid arthritis of the lungs, and severe neurological pain associated with a degenerative spinal column.  She described her pain as 'an electric shock' that lasted for prolonged periods of time.  She had been prescribed powerful opiates for her excruciating pain events, and yet they seemed to only moderately control her intense pain experiences.

I met with  this patient a second time when she had been readmitted to the medical center for acute breathing distress associated with pulmonary rheumatoid arthritis.  I wanted to meet with her because she had sent a verbal message to me through the palliative care chaplain that she would like for me to attend her funeral. When we met together we had a profound discussion.  She said to me "I can't handle this pain.  I tell God that this is too much for me."

Sometime later she told me that in the midst of the pain God came to her and helped her.  She said that when she was in terrible pain she would pray divine praises to God. Then she told me that she had learned to turn the pain into prayer.  She said that that was the only way she could control what was happening to her when the pain was shooting through her body.

Her words and experiences were deeply powerful.  She had allowed me to enter into her world and share in its mysteries.  I visited her and she ministered to me.  I intuitively knew that God was enabling her to use her intense pain events to give witness to the reality of faith.  Not faith as mere subjective expression of her beliefs, but Faith as the expression of a soul that has been blessed by God to manifest His power in the midst of seeming weakness.

That dear lady had informed my philosophy of chaplaincy in an unexpected manner.  Her faith had informed and transcended her immediate experience.  She had a grasp of God's power and presence that can only be ours when we dare to step into the lives of another in a deeply meaningful way.

Too often our faith experiences  are the result of artificial worship.  God invites us to go deeper still.  To serve God appropriately we must step out of ourselves.  For many this is too hard.  The Iesous inspects our faith.  The Iesous also tests our faith.  We are indeed members of one another,  and we are challenged by Him to walk by faith and not by sight.

The fact that the Iesous speaks about the visitation of  the sick should move us to examine our faith.  This is not a call to chaplaincy it is a call to own our common vocation as believers.  God is seen in the world through the actions of His people.  Do you visit the sick?  When you hear a friend speak of cancer do you hide from her pain?  When a loved one is lost are you there to give comfort to the grieving?  Beloved, ministry is there to bless you-not to take from you.

Blessings to you.

For more information about Dr. Rich and his teaching ministry, please follow his blog and visit his website.