Thoughts From Luke - Day 25

                                              Luke 6:27-36

“But to you who are listening I say: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, ²⁸ bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you. ²⁹ If someone slaps you on one cheek, turn to them the other also. If someone takes your coat, do not withhold your shirt from them. ³⁰ Give to everyone who asks you, and if anyone takes what belongs to you, do not demand it back. ³¹ Do to others as you would have them do to you.
³² “If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners love those who love them. ³³ And if you do good to those who are good to you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners do that. ³⁴ And if you lend to those from whom you expect repayment, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners, expecting to be repaid in full. ³⁵ But love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them without expecting to get anything back. Then your reward will be great, and you will be children of the Most High, because he is kind to the ungrateful and wicked. ³⁶ Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.

      How do we shine in a dark world? How do we look different than the rest of the world? The Bible gives us some different ways so the one I'm giving today isn't exclusive but the one in this passage is pretty powerful. Ready? Here it goes - How do you respond to people that dump on you?

     This happens all the time, doesn't it. It happened to me a bunch this weekend. In the context of this passage it refers to enemies mistreating you, and mine certainly weren't enemies, but, yes, I got dumped on and I didn't always pass the tests. The latest incident was at 11PM last night when I was called in to the ER to see a patient in writhing pain with a large dermoid ovarian cyst. The thing about dermoids is that they are there for years. They don't acutely happen like most cysts and sometimes they twist and cause pain. Another doctor in town saw her 4 years ago and even though the CT scan showed this cyst, he told her he couldn't find it and she was fine. So now, since I am on call, I get to come in and handle the problem when I should be sleeping, on a patient without healthcare insurance so I won't get paid anything. How did I respond? Part good - part bad. The good was that I really wasn't visibly upset, I got to pray with the patient, I got to talk to one of the nurses about Jesus - a little, I was kind to the OR staff and prayed before I operated... so it was good. The bad was I made sure the significant other knew the other doctor should have taken care of this in 2011. So close to handling things well yet so far away.

      Then there was another case similar to the above except the patient wasn't kind, was demanding, didn't have health insurance, was on suboxone for narcotic maintenance, has hepatitis C so I could get it if I poked myself with a needle - and I had to take care of her because my partner who has operated on her in the past was out of town. I operated on her, fixed her, and she left angry that we weren't keeping her in the hospital on IV morphine and sending her home with hydros instead of Roxicet. She was going to go to a hospital that doesn't treat people like s###. My response to her - well, I didn't pray with her. I didn't kill her with kindness. I bad mouthed her behind her back. How was I different than any other unbeliever in the world? How did I shine? Not at all.

      Then I got a call on my cell phone at 1230AM from a patient who went to my partner with previous pregnancies but since has been using a midwife. The midwife told her she was going to have a miscarriage, gave her medicine to help it happen and when it did she came into the ER, saw a huge crowd and long wait and called me to see if I could get her seen quicker. I could have (should have) come in and helped her out but at 1230AM for someone who had rejected us, all I could do was muster a call to the front desk asking them to move her up. It didn't work. She waited 2 1/2 hours.

     Before you judge me, which I fully deserve BTW, how do you respond when someone at work calls in "sick" on your day off and you have to come in to work? How do you act when someone at work always gets spring break week off so you have to work while your kids are out of school? How do you act when someone cuts in front of you driving? How about you are waiting in line at a grocery store and they open a new line and even though you were there much longer, everyone cuts in front. I was at Weigels the other day and there were two cashiers so there was kind of a middle line waiting for the first available, when someone just stood in line behind a person checking out bypassing the long center line. Maybe at work you feel you are the one always taking out the garbage, closing up, cleaning up messes, etc. People are constantly dumping on you. How do you respond? If you respond well it will distinguish you as a unique follower of Christ. You will shine. People will see the difference. It will give you an opportunity to share Christ with them. Let's do this - you and me! My new T-shirt slogan - Dump On Me!

        Lord, help me to enjoy being dumped on, knowing that it is an opportunity to die to self and distinguish myself as a follower of Christ. This is not in me at all - I need your help! Amen