If God isn't real, then why is grace the most powerful healer of wrongs?

Luke 18:31-42

The blind beggar asks for mercy from Jesus as Jesus walks by. There may only be certain times when Jesus passes by right in fornt of us, and we must seize them when they happen.

In 41, Jesus asks, "What do you want me to do for you?" What would I say if Jesus asked me that? Its an overwhelming question, coming from the Lord of the universe. If Jesus walked by me right now, what would I ask of Jesus? I don't think it would be something Christian sounding like, make my ministry better. Nor do I think it would be something pertaining to my school work, like make me smarter or my grades better. What do I need as much as the blind man needed sight? I think I would want to be freed from the bonds of sin. That's really the one thing that I need more than anything.

Pray for what you really need, and I believe God will answer as He answered the blind man.

Through the Valley

Originally submitted as an assignment for my school's Community Health Component course:

--

“Hola. Me llamo Peter. Cómo se llama?” 

That was about the extent of my Spanish speaking ability. We were at yet another colonia, a type of rural shantytown without adequate municipal services such as water, electricity, and sewage. These are places that even the government stays away from – that is, cities exclude these places from their city limits because the tax dollars generated would not be worth the municipal services they would have to provide. There is also no legal obligation for the county or state to provide such services.  

It was my fourth week at a colonia and I had finally gotten a sense of the work flow necessary to compensate for my inability to communicate with the patients. 

“Me llamo Maria.”

“¿Cuántos años tienes?”

“Cincuenta y cinco.”

I held up the blood pressure cuff and pointed to her arm. With an approving nod, I successfully avoided the first language hurdle. One hundred thirty-five over eighty. Not bad, considering her weight and the blood pressures I had seen throughout the day. Next, I pointed at the underside of my wrist with two fingers. She got the message. As I was trying to remember the words to test her blood sugar, she helpfully preempted me. 

“Sugar.”

Relieved, I took out the glucose meter and tested her. The first week, it had struck me as odd that a diabetic who was worried about their blood sugar would not have a home meter. It probably shouldn’t have. After a few seconds, the number “255” flashed on the screen. I showed it to her, causing her brows to furrow in dismay. I pointed to the table across the room. “Alright Ms. Maria, go see Dr. Patterson, he’ll help you out.”

However, even as I said that, I knew that the options were limited. The clinic discouraged the practice of managing chronic illnesses without the ability for consistent follow-up or laboratory tests. We would counsel most patients to seek a primary health provider and obtain laboratory studies. However, the patients’ lack of insurance and questionable legal status makes obtaining such services difficult. The cheaper alternative, the prescription of diet and exercise, is almost equally difficult. The abundance of tortillas, meats, and cheese is as much ingrained in the diet as it is in the culture. Even if patients were willing to make dietary changes, salads and vegetable dishes often do not exist in their recipe repertoire.

Later, after all the patients had left, the team reviewed some of the day’s cases. One man had come complaining of a headache. He revealed that he had actually been diagnosed with a pituitary tumor in a hospital, but could not afford the cancer treatment. He had come to the free clinic in desperation to look for other options. As none of us were capable of neurosurgery, the best we could do was to refer him to places that might do such a procedure for a reduced price. It is alarming that no current option exists for these patients. In the 1970’s, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) stepped in for end stage renal disease (ESRD) patients to pay for dialysis treatment in order to prevent hundreds of thousands of patients from otherwise certain death, but ESRD remains the only disease that is federally paid for. EMTALA, the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act, which mandates the treatment of patients that arrive in the Emergency Department, only requires treatment for emergency medical conditions. For patients with a growing brain tumor, it would not cover the long-course care that would be necessary for complete tumor remission.

The social obligations and ethics of such policies are easily debatable in the boundaries of academia and politics, but much more disturbing when the face of the patient is sitting across from you. There is rarely an easy answer in the world of legislation, but there may be innovative alternatives.  One such hopeful effort by the director of the clinic is the implementation of mini health clinics at commercial establishments such as Wal-Mart. He believes that this would allow patients to access the continuity of care necessary to manage chronic conditions, provide preventative care, and manage costs to dramatically improve the health of local populations. Such innovation is a much needed glimmer of hope in a landscape where epidemic hopelessness risks ignorance and inaction.

The Sun

'But,” he said, “you cannot see my face, for man shall not see me and live.”'
- Exodus 33:20

 Went to South Padre Island today with some of the residents. It's a really nice beach. It's kinda weird - like one minute you're in kind of the middle of nowhere in the Valley and the next you're at this world class resort destination. It was pretty cool. 

Anyway, all those speeches that you hear about how important it is to wear sunscreen has been getting to me lately. In the past I haven't been a very sunscreeny-type person; I've mostly put a lot of faith in my genes. But I got bit wiser and also figure my DNA-repair capabilities probably weren't what they used to be, so I decided to really lather it up this time, especially since I got burned pretty bad last time in Hawaii. Which got me thinking, that's so weird that the sun  burns you. This is the thing that provides light so we can see, the thing that everything revolves around, and the thing that without which there would be no life on Earth. And this source of life will 1) blind you if you look at it directly, and 2) will burn you and eventually kill you if you stay in it directly for too long. Is it a coincidence that this exactly mirrors the way that God describes his glory?
 
As David says in Psalm 19:
"The heavens declare the glory of God,
    and the sky above proclaims his handiwork."

Genesis 12 - Its not about me

In Genesis 12, God calls Abram to leave everything, follow God, and go to a new land. God promises that He will make Abram into a great nation and all the blessings that come with it. Amazingly, Abram drops everything and obediently goes. For some strange reason, God shows Abram the land of Canaan, the land that will be given to Abram's offspring, but does not have him settle there. Instead Abram just builds an altar there, and then builds another altar at some random place between Bethel and Ai. And then Abram goes to the Negev desert. What was God's purpose in all of this? This doesn't make any sense. Its like God just took Abram on a tour, and then it just stopped. The next paragraph says there was a famine and then Abram went down to Egypt and pretends his wife is his sister. There is no mention of God's direction here. It's like at the first sign of trouble, Abram abandons God and seeks his own provision.

I wonder what God had planned for Abram originally? What if Abram remained faithful, and followed God through the desert? What would have happened? It maddening to think of all the promises that Abram missed out on because of his unfaithfulness and disobedience. This is so much like my life.

But to focus on this would get nowhere. No, because this story isn't about what Abram missed out on or what could have happened if I had obeyed God more this past week. This story is the story of God, and His utter redemption of us. To focus it on what I missed out on would be missing the entire point of it. No, God - GOD brought Abram out of Egypt, GOD brought Joseph out of Egypt, GOD brought me out of darkness. This story happens so many times in the Bible and in my life, but God's faithfulness remains. And that's what really matters. To God alone be all the praise, honor, and glory.

The one story in the Bible from which someone emerged from the desert sinless is Jesus Christ. So that's the answer to the question of what Abram missed out on: what Jesus accomplished.

I Like Adoption

Just watched the “I Like Adoption” video. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rztYMMhMT2Y) Really makes you think about the worth of a human life. No matter how “pro-choice” you are, this should make you think twice. These are children who were given a second chance at life. Kind of just like how all of us were when we were saved from our sins. Because none of us deserved it – like these kids, we were plucked out of the darkness and given new life, both on this earth, and in the life to come. What struck me the most though, is that these kids, without arms and/or legs, are the happiest kids I have ever seen with those disabilities. Not even a twinge of feeling sorry for themselves. You know why I think that is? I think it’s because they know that they don’t deserve what they’ve been given – that they should probably be dead right now. But instead, they’re bouncing on trampolines and playing guitar with their feet. What would it be like if we realized that we’re in the same boat as these kids?