Are You Plugged In? Series

Are You Plugged In?

CCCAG April 1st, 2018

Scripture- John 4:31-38

Introduction

Purpose unfulfilled

Early days of being a Paramedic

I started working full time as a paramedic when I was in my mid 20’s, and as with everyone who starts in Fire or EMS, you start at the bottom. At the company I worked for, that means you started at Station 1.

Station one was a transfer station. No 911, no rescue. You did nursing home runs and interfacility calls all day long. What that means is you took people home from the hospital who could not walk or sit in a wheelchair, or to the doctor’s office, or from a small hospital to a big hospital.

No rescue, no lifesaving, and no cool stuff you went to school to learn.

After about 6 months of that, I was getting pretty fed up. I started to feel as if I lost a year of my life going through a very tough school, learning to save lives to do nothing but transfer people from one place to another.

My partner at the time noticed that my once awesome attitude was beginning to show signs of deterioration. I was complaining, not really excited about coming to work, generally grumpy with everyone. He said, “You need to get a few shifts out at Station 3”

Station 3 was our rescue station. They were pretty busy as they covered most of the southern end of Walworth County, and did paramedic intercepts with Western Kenosha and Racine Counties. 90% of what they did was 911 rescue and they only did transfers when no other crews were available. The problem is that station assignment was based on seniority, of which I had none.

Well my partner worked it out so he did a trade with one of the more junior guys out at 3, and because I was still considered too new to work without a senior partner, they moved me out to station 3 for a couple of shifts.

During those two shifts, I delivered my first baby, had a level one trauma, and 2 cardiac arrests, one of whom was brought back to life and eventually left the hospital completely normal.

I remember sitting on the bumper of the ambulance outside of Lakeland Medical center writing my report, watching the sunset and rejoicing that God let me follow my dream of being a lifesaver.

I was reenergized. I was on top of the world- I loved my job again. I had reconnected with the reason I became a paramedic in the first place, and that energy carried me through the long shifts at Station 1 until I had earned the right to have a permanent station 3 assignment.

I learned a valuable life lesson from that time-

There is something powerful about connecting with the reason that you exist.

For a long time I thought it was to be a paramedic. I thought that was God’s call on my life, and the reason HE molded me and shaped me and my strengths and personality the way that HE did, and I saw that as my life mission.

Until I got called into the ministry, and realized paramedic was only a stepping stone for a higher plan God had for me.

Now- I get just as much of a rush seeing people get saved or watching them grow in the LORD. That’s part of what feeds my spirit and enables me to keep the proper perspective on being a bi-vocational ministry- that what I am doing for God and the sake of the Kingdom is never in vain.

Last week in John 4 we read the story of the Samaritan Woman at the Well. We saw how Jesus ignored the religious rules of His time to seek and save one woman who had been used and abused by the men in her life, and was a social outcast from her own people.

She accepts the truth, and is moved from death to eternal life, and Jesus is basking in her salvation when his disciples return from finding him some food. I have this picture in my head that Jesus is like me sitting on the bumper of the ambulance, rejoicing in what God has called HIM to do.

That’s how His disciples find Him in John 4:31

John 4:31-38

31 Meanwhile his disciples urged him, “Rabbi, eat something.”

32 But he said to them, “I have food to eat that you know nothing about.”

33 Then his disciples said to each other, “Could someone have brought him food?”

34 “My food,” said Jesus, “is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work. 35 Don’t you have a saying, ‘It’s still four months until harvest’? I tell you, open your eyes and look at the fields! They are ripe for harvest. 36 Even now the one who reaps draws a wage and harvests a crop for eternal life, so that the sower and the reaper may be glad together. 37 Thus the saying ‘One sows and another reaps’ is true. 38 I sent you to reap what you have not worked for. Others have done the hard work, and you have reaped the benefits of their labor.”