Are We Adults Or What?!

This has been a very busy week at work! July 1 seems to be one day in the year when it seems like each of the medical practitioner’s licenses’ expire and the time when Residents are finishing their training and becoming full-fledged docs and new docs are asking for privileges at the hospital – all at the same time! This week I have been making calls, sending emails, requesting and almost begging for the documents needed for practitioners to continue their privileges at our facility!

I have been on the phone almost constantly for the past two days talking with the docs’ staff, letting them know what we need from the practitioner and letting them know that we are on a strict deadline! It’s not that they are uncooperative; I think they are just so busy that we end up very low on the priority list! Most thanked me for the reminders and worked very hard to get the documents to us before the deadline!

As I made call after call after call and sent email after email, I thought this must be a very small inkling of what our Lord must feel when he sees us putting him lower and lower on our list of priorities! We all seem to be so busy that we allow things like work, shopping, TV, or any number of other “fun” activities to become more important than time spent in worship, Bible study, prayer and true fellowship with other Christians.

Today, at times, I would be a little frustrated thinking that these are all adults, intelligent adults who make “life and death” decisions each and every day, but they can’t remember to take care of necessary paperwork? I would find myself thinking, they know that they have certain licenses required in their profession and that each of those licenses has an expiration date and each license has to be renewed and kept current in order to legally continue in their chosen profession. That seems, to me, to be an easy concept to grasp! Don’t get me wrong, I still love my job but this has been a more difficult week than I have experienced since beginning my job.

I am reminded that God laid out the plan for our lives and made it so that we have a “guidebook” to keep us on track. I think of the sacrifice He made allowing His son to die upon the cross to bear our sins and our diseases for us. I think of what Jesus went through even before he was put on the cross, bruised, beaten, tortured – denied by one of his own apostles and betrayed by another!

Can you imagine having 12 close friends and out of those 12, two that you loved would betray you the way Peter and Judas betrayed Jesus! At a time in your life when you needed your closest friends to be with you, to pray with you and for you, even just to stay awake while you prayed over one of the most horrific events that could ever happen to mortal man and yet you knew it was going to happen to you.

Now, can you even imagine that someone would love you as much as God loves us that you could allow your own child to be treated like a common criminal and put to death!

Frankly, that’s a love that is so huge, so magnificent that I truly have a hard time wrapping myself around the fact that God loved me that much! That God loves me even though I am not perfect, or even close to perfect! Just knowing that He loves me that much makes me wake up each day praising Him and with a burning desire in my heart and soul to make Him proud to call me His child! What an awesome privilege it is for me to serve Him and live each day as He has commanded!

Obedience to my Heavenly Father is not a chore, but is instead an incredible honor and a blessing! I am thankful that my God is a loving and merciful God. I am thankful that I know God and am not just “coasting” through this life without a purpose and without a plan.

I’m thankful every day for the gift of a new day and the opportunity to begin over again and live better than I did the day before!