Collector of Good Vibrations?

Kaitlin was a most challenging patient.  I diagnosed her with inflammatory bowel disease when she was only a child, and her condition never seemed to be under control with medications, despite me trying her with multiple treatment options.  Kaitlin had an attractive smile, but her face always seemed pale from anemia, and she was malnourished.  Her disease prevented her intestines from absorbing nutrients properly, and because she constantly had nausea, stomachaches and diarrhea, she was afraid to eat.  I worried that her intestines might not be able to properly absorb the medications that I prescribed, and ordered a laboratory test to measure her drug level.  It was undetectable, and I eventually confirmed through Kaitlin’s confession that she had not taken any of her pills, because she developed a psychological fear of taking any form of medication.  By the time she entered high school, Kaitlin’s symptoms often seemed to provide sufficient reason for her mother to keep her home from school, and her numerous school absences soon alerted the school administrator to call the local police to investigate the family.  To make matters worse, her parents’ marriage disintegrated, and her father ended up in jail shortly afterwards.

Things were definitely not looking up.

I spent many hours working with Kaitlin and her mother, and am thankful that she eventually responded somewhat to a treatment regimen (it was a medication that the nurses had to give intravenously in the clinic, so that we did not have to worry about her not taking her medication).  We developed sufficient familiarity with each other over the years that the mother started to share with me various concerns, many of which I was unable to help directly.  During one of these conversations, I asked the mother’s permission to pray for her, as I did not know whether she was a Christian.

“Oh, that is so nice of you, Dr. Duh.  Sure, I am always happy to have positive healing energy sent my way from people of different faiths.”

I did pray for her, but was also a bit dumbfounded by her response.  Sending positive healing energy?  I knew how to send a prescription to the pharmacy, and I’ve sent many letters.  I’ve even sent flowers to my wife, but I’ve never knowingly sent energy before.  Was I supposed to call the post office?  FedEx?  UPS?  How is this positive energy supposed to be packaged, in a box?  Bubble wrap?

Praying for a person is not the same thing as sending him or her positive thoughts or healing thoughts.  When I pray, I am praying to God, the sovereign Creator of the universe, who can do all things.  My thoughts have no power, and my prayers are useless if they are not directed to God.  If I say that I am sending healing thoughts, positive thoughts, positive vibrations, healing energy, or even “prayers” to a person, I am presuming that I can harness divine forces, even control and manipulate God to do what I want, in the same way that we harness wind and solar power.  May this never be!  God is the source of all our existence, visible or invisible, and He is not amused when we presume to take His place or find a substitute:

“‘See now that I, even I, am he,
and there is no god beside me;
I kill and I make alive;
I wound and I heal;
and there is none that can deliver out of my hand.  (Deuteronomy 32:39)

I am the LORD, and there is no other,
besides me there is no God;
I equip you, though you do not know me,
that people may know, from the rising of the sun
and from the west, that there is none besides me;
I am the LORD, and there is no other.  (Isaiah 45:5-6)

  remember the former things of old;
for I am God, and there is no other;
I am God, and there is none like me, (Isaiah 46:9)

I will not send healing thoughts to a person.  I will instead pray to God, the Healer, whose thoughts have more power than anything that fallen mankind can conjure.

Separated But Not Disowned

"Lisa, how are your parents?  Are they in good health?"

My wife started the conversation with our friend while we were carpooling to a fundraising event recently.  We talked about her parents' strong Christian faith and service, which came as little surprise, as Lisa, a physician, is herself a strong believer who lives out her faith through her love for others.  Our conversations drifted to Lisa's plans to take a short-term medical missions trip to Mexico, but within minutes we were sharing stories about our own children, as parents are wont to do.  We talked about the challenges of raising children in a Christian family, and my wife asked Lisa about her own childhood, assuming that her parents were Christian during her youth.

"Actually, my parents were Muslims...and they were so strict in their religion they almost killed me when I accidentally ate a piece of pork...it tasted sooooo good!"

It turned out that Lisa became a Christian in an austere Muslim household.  Her parents were so upset at her conversion, they seriously considered disowning her.  Being disowned would mean that she would have lost all ties, physical, financial, and perhaps emotional, to her parents.  Thankfully, they relented, and by God's grace, whatever thread of connection that remained allowed Lisa to restore their relationship, and she eventually became the instrument of their salvation.

Similarly, when Adam and Eve sinned by eating the forbidden fruit, God could have disowned them completely.  Mankind could have been annihilated in an instant, and if somehow God allowed us to exist, we would have been eternally separated from God, to the point that we would have no connection with our Creator in any form.  Yet He chose to remain connected with us.  God had compassion on Adam and Eve, that He provided for them before they were driven from the Garden of Eden:

And the LORD God made for Adam and for his wife garments of skins and clothed them. (Genesis 3:21)

Mankind became separated from God, but not disconnected.  In subsequent generations, Cain and Abel presented offerings to the Lord, Enoch walked with the Lord, Noah found favor with God, and God called Abraham to become the father of nations.  God did not disown mankind, but continued to intersect with our lives throughout the generations of His people, until at the appointed time, He sent Jesus to fully restore our relationship with Himself.  We get to return to our heavenly Father, never to be separated again.  The thread of connection is God's word:

but these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.  (John 20:31)

Squiggly Image

"Oh, this one's going to be hard..."

Years ago, my family was playing a game of Pictionary with some friends from church, and it was my son Christopher's turn to do the drawing.  Pictionary is a guessing game that is similar to charades, where one person draws pictures to provide clues to a secret word or phrase that others must guess correctly as quickly as possible.  As an example, if the word is "chicken", the person who knows the word will try to draw a chicken, while the others blurt out what they think is being drawn until someone says "chicken!".  Sometimes the word or phrase is easy (most people know how to draw a chicken), but others can be practically impossible, and requires all the creativity and imagination that one can muster.  It appeared that my son would have to pull out some trick out of his sleeves for this one.

Tension filled the air as the timer went off.  Suddenly my son's eyes brightened as he approached the large piece of paper.  He drew what looked like a canoe.

"A boat!  No, a ship...a dinghy...an aircraft carrier!"  I started to yell mindlessly as the little vessel started to take shape.

He shook his head, and kept drawing.  Now he started to draw what appeared to be a person on the boat.

"Man on the boat...a sailor!  No, pirate?  Captain Hook?"

No luck so far, and the timer ticked on.  What could it possibly be?  Meanwhile, my son started to put some squiggly hair on the person's head, and drew a hat on top.

"George Washington!"

My son stopped drawing and fist-pumped into the air.  "Yes!  You got it!"

The air stood still for a second before everyone else in the room let out a collective gasp of shock and awe.  It seemed beyond understanding how I could correctly guess the words "George Washington" from the drawing of a person with squiggly hair and a hat standing on a boat.

"It wasn't that hard to figure out.  Chris was drawing Washington crossing the Delaware!"

It just happened that my son and I recently saw a reproduction of that famous 1851 Emanuel Leutze painting.  Chris' rendition of the man on the boat was not much closer to George Washington than Peter Pan or Alice in Wonderland, but a little intuition led me to the proper conclusion.  It was, albeit an imprecise one, an image of the first President of the United States of America.

In a way, we are all somewhat imprecise images.  On the sixth day of creation, when God created man, it was written,

So God created man in his own image
in the image of God he created him;
male and female he created them (Genesis 1:27)

Sometimes it's hard to imagine that there is much in us that reflects God in any way.  We are blemished, selfish, arrogant, shameful and without self control.  Some of us are tall, short, fat, skinny, funny looking or without fashion sense.  A well known pastor has often said that if you don't think that God has a sense of humor, just look at all the people around us.

Yet, despite all our shortcomings, each of us still bears God's communicable attributes.  God is beautiful and creative, and we enjoy the beauty of His creation.  God is righteous, and our conscience tells us what is right and wrong.  God is the source of life, and we value life and admire those who save lives.  God is community as a triune Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and we are made not to be alone, but to live with those we love.

May we always remember to live our days as if we are created in God's image, though we may appear only as little squiggly lines when compared to our Creator.  May we also value each and every person, regardless of what we see, as someone who also bears His image in an unique way.

Gods Without Godliness

"So, tell me what this Peter Jackson thing is about."

I was trying to start a conversation with my daughter while driving her home from a school event.  I knew that she was reading this Rick Riordan novel where the plot involved some teenagers and Greek mythology.

"What?"  My daughter seemed totally clueless about where I was heading.

"You know, that novel that recently became a movie, about these kids trying to save the world from these crazy Greek gods, or something like that..."

"Oh, you mean Percy Jackson!"  Oops.  Peter Jackson is the movie director who did the Lord of the Rings films.  I was close.

"Yeah, like, at the beginning of the story, Zeus lost his lightning bolt, and like, he thought that Poseidon stole it from him, because, like, Zeus and Poseidon did not like each other, and, like, like..."

I had been trying to get my daughter to stop saying "like" every time she's trying to tell a story, but it looked like it was like not working.

"So, you're saying that Zeus is a god, but he can't even find his own lightning bolt?  Sounds like someone I know who couldn't find her flute yesterday..."

"Dad, stop it!  So, anyways, Percy Jackson and these other teenagers were, like, demigods, but they didn't know about it until..."

"Demigods?  So you're saying that these Greek gods were having sex with humans and got young ladies pregnant?  So these Greek gods can actually lose things, not get along with each other, not know everything, and act like a bunch of dirty old men?  The story sounds like a soap opera to me."

My daughter ignored my religious rant, and continued on with how these half-humans ended up being trained at Camp Half-Blood, somewhere in New York, and how the story somehow ended with the lightning bolt eventually being returned back to Zeus.  Unfortunately, she, like, lost me pretty quickly, as my mind wandered and wondered about just how human-like these Greek gods are.  Am I glad that they're not actually running the universe!

Come to think of it, deities that are conceived by humans throughout history are mostly like these characters who supposedly live on Mount Olympus.  They are typically morally deficient, limited in knowledge, limited in power, and/or limited by the dimensions of time and space.  Such are the products of human conception.  It is therefore of little wonder that our self-existent, all-knowing, all-powerful, omnipresent, eternal, righteous, and good God started the Ten Commandments with the directive,

"You shall have no other gods before me."  Exodus 20:3

Not Quite a Triathlete

"Hey Glenn, you doing LA this year?"

My friend Juan runs, bikes and swims, and we participated in the same marathon event during the previous year.  It was therefore natural for him to ask me during a recent chance meeting whether I was planning to run the latest edition of the Los Angeles Marathon.

"Well, I've done 21 marathons already, so I thought that I'll give myself a little break from it this year...and I'm learning how to swim...."

I meant to say that I was training for my first ever triathlon, but was too sheepish to say it, because my swimming was still pretty atrocious.

"Wait, are you thinking about doing a tri?  That's great!  Maybe you can do the LA Triathlon this year.  You know, there's this class at a local college that teaches you how to...."

I already had similar conversations with several other friends, so there were plenty of folks who knew that I was planning to do a triathlon.  However, I had not registered for any tri event yet, because I was still worried about the swim portion of the race.  To say that I am a novice swimmer is a gross understatement, as I probably had not swam more than 200 total meters in over 30 years when I decided to hit the pool again for the first time after my last marathon.  My anxiety over being in the water was appropriate, as I was barely able to cover 25 meters at a time without drowning during my first pool session.  There was no way that I would actually register for a triathlon until I could swim farther...much farther.

I managed to return to the pool two to three times a week despite my initial aquatic struggles, and after about one month, I was actually able to swim a full 50 meters without touching the pool floor.  It wasn't pretty, but my endurance improved as I was able to cut through the water with a little less effort.  After two months, I would occasionally be able to cover 100 meters, and then 150 meters.  I was now tempted to look up the local triathlon race calender, but refrained from doing so, knowing that if I signed up for a race, I'd likely end up in last place.

I have now been swimming regularly for about four months, and can now cover a continuous mile in the water on good days.  I am still a very slow swimmer, and likely will still be one of the last persons out of the water in a triathlon, but I am improving, and hopefully will be able to beat out a few others during the race.  Time is now ripe for me to register for a race.

Most people probably consider my cautious approach before signing up for a triathlon as being prudent, a matter of "counting the cost" before undertaking a project.  Jesus also cautioned those who wanted to be his disciples to count the cost of following him:

"Suppose one of you wants to build a tower.  Won't you first sit down and estimate the cost to see if you have enough money to complete it?  For if you lay the foundation and are not able to finish it, everyone who sees it will ridicule you, saying, 'This person began to build and wasn't able to finish.'

Or suppose a king is about to go to war against another king.  Won't he first sit down and consider whether he is able with ten thousand men to oppose the one coming against him with twenty thousand?  If he is not able, he will send a delegation while the other is still a long way off and will ask for terms of peace.  In the same way, those of you who do not give up everything you have cannot be my disciples."  (Luke 14:28-33)

Many who claim to be Christians are drawn to the benefits of Christ - eternal life, heaven, forgiveness of sins, peace, joy, purpose, etc.  However, they often fail to recognize the cost of following him, and many become disillusioned when they enter rough waters in life.  The cost of being a Christian is total surrender - we are asked to totally relinquish control of our lives to God.  It is not difficult if we recognize that God's ways are infinitely better than ours, but if we fail to understand this cost, we will be fighting against God's directions for our lives.

The Bucket List

The clinic corridor was buzzing with curiosity as a small crowd gathered around two doctors who just returned from a three-week vacation to South Africa. The doctors, a pediatric cardiologist and a pediatric oncologist, decided to take a once-in-a-lifetime trip together, during which they spent many hours in the various wildlife preserves, saw innumerable large mammals, and tracked down the “big five”, i.e., the elephant, the lion, the leopard, the rhinoceros, and the Cape buffalo, with their guide in open-air Land Rovers. The excitement reached a climax as they recounted how they got dangerously close to a rhinoceros that nearly charged at them, and a voice in the group chided the surviving travelers for putting the clinic at risk of losing two doctors on the same day. Another pediatrician, who also took a similar vacation a few years ago, exclaimed that every person needs to take this trip at least once in his or her lifetime, and the returning adventurers heartily agreed. In other words, an African safari is on their “bucket list”.

Bucket lists, that is, lists of items to check off before one dies (kicks the bucket), have become quite popular nowadays. There are books on places to visit before you die, restaurants to eat at before you die, and in a recent issue of an endurance sports magazine, I even saw a bucket list of events for hardcore runners...let's see how many I can check off:

Boston Marathon – check...did it in 2007

Comrades Marathon in South Africa – 56 miles...probably doable if I don't get too old...maybe in a few years?

Western States Endurance Run – 100 miles in the mountains? I'm not good with directions, so it will probably turn into 150 miles...forget it....

Seriously, you can't always take these lists too seriously.

Do I have a “bucket” list? Well, not exactly, but I do hope to someday see Alaska, be on a cruise, go to Europe, have grandchildren, and finish a triathlon. However, experiencing the awesome, majestic presence of the holy God would be on the short list if I have one. It was certainly highly endorsed by king David long ago:

One thing I ask of the LORD,

this is what I seek:

that I may dwell in the house of the LORD

all the days of my life,

to gaze upon the beauty of the LORD

and to seek him in his temple

(Psalm 27:4)

Better is one day in your courts

than a thousand elsewhere;

I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God

than dwell in the tents of the wicked.

(Psalm 84:10)

Would I rather be in the house of the LORD, or be charged by an angry rhino in South Africa? One experience is bound to be life-changing, while the other is potentially life-ending. There is no comparison.