Patient Patients

Isn't it strange that the word hospital so closely resembles the word hospitality? Nothing against the medical profession (my wife is a nurse and my son-in-law is an M.D.), but most of us consider hospitals places to avoid. Do you really want to spend time in an institution filled with unpleasant sights, sounds, and smells? A place where strangers poke you with needles, wake you in the middle of the night, prod you to walk before you feel up to it, and expect you to swallow pills that look the size of golf balls—all before sending you home with a bill for expenses roughly equivalent to the mortgage on your house? Hospitality indeed! But even with its shortcomings, I'm grateful for the quality of health care we receive in modern America.

They didn't have well-equipped hospitals in New Testament times. Back then, doctors like Luke made house calls, and so did elders (James 5:14). Compassionate neighbors like the Good Samaritan did the best they could to help sufferers, applying home remedies like bandages, oil, and wine, and providing funds for long-term care (Luke 10:33–35).

Physical suffering can make us bitter or it can make us better, but either way it compels us to grapple with spiritual issues we might ignore if we always enjoyed good health. In The Problem of Pain, C. S. Lewis wrote that pain is God's megaphone to rouse a deaf world. Jesus said, "It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick" (Matthew 9:12), and times of physical weakness can awaken us to our need for the Great Physician.

Maybe that's why Jesus made it a point to mingle with sick people, including those with chronic afflictions. Some of us might have avoided the pool of Bethesda where "a great number of disabled people used to lie—the blind, the lame, the paralyzed" (John 5:3). But Jesus visited there and healed a man who had been paralyzed for 38 years—nearly 14,000 very long days! One woman, afflicted with chronic bleeding for 12 years, "had suffered a great deal under the care of many doctors and had spent all she had, yet instead of getting better she grew worse." Through faith in the Lord, she was healed when she touched the hem of Jesus' cloak (Mark 5:25–34). Another woman suffered a debilitating spinal condition for 18 years until Jesus corrected her problem (Luke 13:10–13). On yet another occasion, the Lord healed a grown man who had spent his whole life unable to see (John 9:1–7).

What about chronic suffering today? God still hears and answers prayer, yet not everyone is healed. Some, like Timothy, serve the Lord faithfully in spite of their frequent illnesses (1 Timothy 5:23). Others, like Epaphroditus, feel distressed because they don't want others to worry about them when they're sick (Philippians 2:26). Still others, like Paul, rely on God's grace while they live with unyielding thorns in the flesh they have repeatedly asked God to remove (2 Corinthians 12:7–10). They "do not lose heart," for their "light and momentary troubles" lead to "an eternal glory that far outweighs them all" (2 Corinthians 4:16, 17).

Soon a day is coming when the Lord "will wipe away every tear" and "there will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain" (Revelation 21:4). Meanwhile, in Jesus' name let's minister to sufferers and ask God to make us patient patients—even during those long days and nights when we're sick . . . and tired of it.