doctor's life support

29th April: Realism in Perspective

What does the worker gain from his toil? Ecclesiastes 3:9 (NIV)

Those who live and work on the medical scene can appreciate the earthy realism of the book Ecclesiastes. Rose-coloured spectacles have no place in medicine's view of life -- or in that of the Teacher, who wrote this remarkable book.

He is a cynic, say some. But in fact he faces reality. He sees life as it is and makes no pretence. So must the doctor or the nurse of whoever has the care of sick people in the real world.

Yet the refrain comes again and again: 'All is meaningless. All, all is vanity'. Life set in an empty universe is pointless, a rat race on a cosmic treadmill: a time for this and a time for that, a time to be born and a time to die...and all in vanity. There is nothing before the beginning and nothing after the ending in an empty universe.

An empty universe? Why must it be empty? For the Teacher it was not empty. For him, God was there. For us, God is here. We, like the Teacher, may feel the treadmill of chapter 3 under our feet -- a time for this and a time for that in a seemingly endless drone -- and we gasp out: 'What does the worker gain from his toil?' The answer comes: 'I have seen the burden God has laid on men'. and then, sweet and clear, 'He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the hearts of men.'

Much is still not explained -- 'they cannot fathom what God has done from beginning to end' -- and so it often is in medicine. But the ultimate hope keeps it in perspective, for God has set eternity in our hearts.

Thank you, Lord, that you have set eternity in my heart.
Help me to see life realistically,
yet always to live in the perspective of hope.

Further reading: Ec 3. 2 Cor 4:8-18.

RRW