Lessons from the hospital
10/3/04
Hospitals are for the sick. Churches are for the needy. There are some great parallels from the halls and rooms of the hospital that directly correspond with the church and Christian life.
The ICU waiting room and the maternity waiting room are always full.
There is a cycle to life. Day and night. Seasons. Sunny and Rainy.
God is constant. The cycle will always turn.
The cycle does not turn around you! It turns around God.
Genesis 1 14 And God said, "Let there be lights in the expanse of the sky to separate the day from the night, and let them serve as signs to mark seasons and days and years,
Deuteronomy 28 12 The LORD will open the heavens, the storehouse of his bounty, to send rain on your land in season and to bless all the work of your hands. You will lend to many nations but will borrow from none.
This means that sometimes blessing will be out of season. BUT even when you are not being blessed you are taken care of.
Ex- tests in school
PICU – kids will leave and the room will be empty. My thought is great no more kids in here and then the next bed rolls in with a new case.
Why do we always think that when we come upon a difficult time in life that God is not there for us? Why do we think that the world will stop on it’s axis?
Job 38 4 "Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation? Tell me, if you understand.
5 Who marked off its dimensions? Surely you know! Who stretched a measuring line across it? 6 On what were its footings set, or who laid its cornerstone- 7 while the morning stars sang together and all the angels [1] shouted for joy?
Sometimes God plays “hard to get” – What have you been taught? Did you know that you can be so intimate with God that you can feel Him?
Get a relationship with God where you can feel Him. You can do it. When you do, you know the difference in the closeness and distance of God.
There is always someone in the hospital with a worse case.
Count your blessings. You might have it bad but it can always be worse. What do you have that you can thank God for?
Like clockwork, that Starflight helicopter keeps bringing in people that are clinging on to life.
As I sit at my desk in the Church office. The phone keeps ringing with people needing clothes, money, prayer, DIRE situations.
Ephesians 5:19Speak to one another with psalms, hymns and spiritual songs. Sing and make music in your heart to the Lord, 20always giving thanks to God the Father for everything, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Philippians 4 6Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.
I Timothy 4:4For everything God created is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving, 5because it is consecrated by the word of God and prayer.
Yeah, but you don’t know what I have been through! Oh yeah, God does and this is His Word!
The is always a procedure to follow at the hospital
In Life there are actions that we need to take to assure the best outcome.
Every single action that is taken in the hospital is regimented and documented. A nurse never does anything on a whim. It is only through calculated practice and procedure that care is given.
Why do nurses and doctors operate or care for patients in the way they do? Because of years of practice has taught them a cause and affect relationship.
People were getting infections when they were given shots. So they realized that there was bacteria on the skin and when the needle went into the skin that infection was breeding. So what do they do now all over the world. Take a little alcohol swab and disinfect the site. This procedure protects them.
They all wear gloves for protection.
PROBLEM: When procedures become the law. Sometimes procedure become outdated and new ones are better. We can’t be so attached to the procedure that we forget why we did it.
Technology is constantly helping out the medical profession.
In churches procedures often become religion. Singing songs always the same way.
Reading the Bible, WHAT IS GOING TO GET THE JOB DONE?
We think that God just acts according to the wind. God has principals and covenants in place to deal with us.
The patients at the hospital who get better are the ones who WANT to get better.
What is your attitude? Why do people bring flowers and gifts to the people in bed?
They are trying to help out the patient’s attitude. Can you imagine if you took pictures of caskets and burial plots to people in ICU?
Who wrote Philippians? PAUL.
Philippians 4: 12I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. 13I can do everything through him who gives me strength.
It is Jesus who gives you strength!
Have you met Jesus? If you have, do you realize what comes with a relationship with God?
You are not just left on the side of the road to fend for yourself. You have the creator on your side to create newness for you. It is a positive thing!
Quit surrounding yourself with losers. Quit putting up pictures of coffins and grave yards and fill your life with flowers and gifts!
You watch soap operas, MTV, depressing country music, pictures of the death of this world. Images of spiritual sickness and not LIFE and HEALTH!!
Put scriptures on the wall. That you can read as you get ready for work. Like
I John 4:18 There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.
2corinthians 10:4 - The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds.
Romans 8:37 …In all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.
What is your attitude for success? Quit looking at all the things of the world that the devil uses to lie to us with.
The Devil is a liar, and he will use anything as a foothold. Diagnosis, threat, someone is late, someone doesn’t call you, someone doesn’t invite you…
