Great Physician

Do you remember being a little kid and having to go get a shot at the doctor? It is truly the most painful and terrifying thing for a child. The doctor becomes synonymous with pain and torture. Even worse, your parents know this to be true yet they drag you, kicking and screaming, like they get some sort of sick pleasure out of watching their child endure such agony. It becomes obvious that they really don't love you. As we get older, the shots hurt less and one day we find that we actually drive ourselves to the doctor to voluntarily endure the torture. Then we have kids and we force them get the very same shots that we hated as children, even though surely we made some sort of promise that if we ever became parents, we would never do such horrible things to our kids. Why do we do it? Because we love our kids and we know what's best for them. My sister-in-law Beth absolutely detests taking the twins for shots but she does it because she loves them and knows what's best.

I found myself thinking about this scenario this morning from God's perspective. How often we look at our circumstances and the pain we have to endure and think that God obviously doesn't love us. Why else would He make us endure such agony, tragedy, and hurt? Seldom do we think about the fact that He might just know best or that He might actually make us go through these things because He loves us. Jesus is often referred to as "the great Physician" and "the great healer." Even the best doctor on the planet sometimes has to inflict a little pain to ultimately heal the patient.

"For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us a glory that far outweighs them all." 2 Corinthians 4:17