“Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promises is faithful.” (Hebrews 10:23)
“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us”—and so Charles Dickens began his classic novel, A Tale of Two Cities. Although published in 1859 regarding events surrounding the French Revolution, this same paragraph could be used to describe the current situation in the world. A world viewed through this lens would be both frustrating and hopeless.
It seems each generation is faced with the same incongruities. With the amount of knowledge doubling at ever-increasing rates, every five years or less currently, we would like to think we are capable of solving the problems of the world. The reality of our dilemma was written in Ecclesiastes 1:9, “What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun.”
And so during the Hope for Europe Congress two weeks ago, the participants were challenged by the current situation in Europe and the world: an aging population, declining birth rate, immigration issues, the rise of Islam, environmental issues, global poverty, corruption and a staggering financial debt. In health care we live in an age when our knowledge of how our bodies function and ability to fix them is exploding, yet we are faced with problems with access to and the cost of care. And still, despite these advances, we must also deal with the death of our patients.
Yet there is one consistency which connects and rises above all of our fears and doubts, transcending all the inconsistencies and challenges we face: God, who is unchanging, the same yesterday, today and tomorrow. Because of the character and consistent faithfulness of God who exposes all falsehood, we may possess and offer hope to our patients and a weary world in need of reconciliation and forgiveness from the One who created them. “In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade.”(1 Peter 1:3,4) This is true hope.
Let us use all the medical knowledge and skill we possess in order to gain influence among the dying in order to share the hope we have been given through Christ.
Read: Romans 15:4, 1 Corinthians 14:6-7, Ephesians 1:18, 1 Peter 3:15
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