Printed from: https://www.cmf.org.uk/doctors/devotion/?id=devotion&day=8&month=4
Do not be surprised at the painful test you are suffering, as though something unusual were happening to you. 1 Peter 4:12 (GNB)
The stresses experienced by a 1st century apostle seem very reminiscent of those encountered by 20th century Christian physicians! In 2 Corinthians 6:1-10 Paul identifies three such areas of stress.
1. Physical extremity (vv4-5). How often, particularly when doing a house-job does life seem more a survival of the fittest doctor than survival of the least fit patient! Paul knew the spiritual problems of fatigue too (v5) and the nervous tension produced by calamities (v4). Did ever a man show such 'great endurance'?
2. Christian integrity (vv6-7). Paul could often have compromised as a preacher. Every day we too have opportunity somewhere to compromise our Christian integrity. 'Purity, forbearance, kindness, genuine love, truthful speech' -- these should characterise our behaviour as Christians in medicine. And it is so easy to live like everyone else. But in so doing, it becomes difficult to live with ourselves.
3. Personal antipathy (vv8-10). It is hard to be disliked or despised (v8). It is frustrating to be junior, 'as unknown' (v9). It is wretched to be reproved, 'as punished' (v9). But these familiar areas of stress were all shared by the apostle.
How then did Paul respond to those stresses of life?
(a) He accepted stress as inevitable. For 'all who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted' (2 Tim 3:12). Did not Christ himself suffer those very same stresses? 'A disciple is not above his teacher' (Mt 10:24).
(b) He acceded to them as invaluable. It is in these very areas of stress that the Christian can often most vividly commend the source of his inner life to others (v9), most really experience the power of God the Holy Spirit (v7), most sadly learn the paucity of his own natural resources, and yet most certainly find, too, that his own inadequacy can prove God's complete adequacy (vv9-10).
'Every trial that we pass through is capable of being the
seed of a noble character. Every temptation that we meet in
the path of duty is another chance of filling our souls
with the power of heaven.'
William Temple
'It is not what happens to us that matters,
but how we react to what happens.
Fred Mitchell.
BW
