The Great Physician

In society today, doctors are some of the most respected and sought after individuals. Everyone needs a doctor at some point in their life – beginning, middle, or end. They are the ones we go to when we are in need of help. Whether it’s mentally or physically, doctors are who we go to when we need answers about things that we don’t understand about ourselves. We trust them because of the schooling that they go through and the knowledge that they obtain during that time. We know that they are more than likely going to have solutions to our issues. 

Except, sometimes they don’t. Then we don’t know what to do. We’re left scrambling and feeling as if we have nothing to hold onto.   

I’ve had the privilege of going on three medical brigades down here to Ecuador before this current visit. They have been some of the most impactful weeks of my life – educationally and spiritually. I’ve learned more about people and medicine in those times than I have in my entire college experience. On those brigades, I got to serve with some of the same doctors. One of them in particular said something each trip that has stuck with me and has been something I’ve come back to regularly this time around. 

“We can give them pain medicine. We can give them vitamins and worm medicine. We can give them eye glasses and other gear. But here’s the reality. The pain will come back, the worms will return, and the eye glasses will get lost or broken. Everything we’re doing here is only solving the problem for a short time. So, I guess you could say that what we’re doing is pretty much pointless. But, when we pray with them, when we share the gospel with them, that’s when we give them real healing. That’s when we give them real hope. Because while everything else is finite, that is eternal.”

We can’t always give people the help they need. We can’t always solve the problems that they have and heal the hurts that they come to us with. It just isn’t within our power to do so. Even if we can there will always be issues that recur. This is why it is absolutely vital for us to care more about their souls than we care about their bodies. Because the reality is, if we aren’t looking out for their souls, their bodies are doomed anyway. If we as physicians and medical professionals – as Christians – aren’t handing them over to the Great Physician then we’re wasting our time. It is God alone who can give them the true healing they are in need of.  

2 Corinthians 4:16 says, “Therefore we do not give up. Even though our outer person is being destroyed, our inner person is being renewed day by day.”

The deterioration of our bodies is a given. As we age the function of our physical selves will decline and there won’t be anything that we can do to stop it. Eventually, we will come to the end of our lives and our physical bodies will return to dust. But, it is in the Lord, in our Great Physician, that we find our hope and can give hope to those around us. In Him, we find the life for our souls. Our bodies may fade away, but our souls are strengthened every day. This is what prayer and the gospel offers us. They offer us the chance to find real healing, real life, in our Lord and Savior. 

If we want to see people healed, we have to see them saved.