Walk A Mile In My Hospital Shoes
Treehugger.com, a better living and health blog, reports:
Hospitals are notorious for having awful food, which makes no sense when you consider they’re in the business of healing people, and food is one of the most effective tools for doing so. Change is slow to come about, despite patients’ complaints about poor taste, horrid texture, and empty nutrition.
In Canada’s capital city, however, things will hopefully improve more quickly. In an unusual display of leadership, the managers of the Ottawa General Hospital spent one week eating hospital food, three meals a day. At the end of the week, they all agreed that a major shift is needed.
We all have blind spots in our compassion. In many cases, they are due to a lack of personal experience, which leaves us unable to relate to those in need. The best cure is to get out of our own comfort zone and walk a mile in their shoes, or in this case, eat for a week at their table. It's amazing how our perspective changes when we simply place ourselves in the circumstances of someone else.
When Jesus said, “do to others what you would have them do to you,” He set forth a principle that has broad application, including what kind of food should be served in a hospital (Matthew 7:12).
Meteor or Shining Light
When you look in the night sky there are few things more amazing to watch than a shooting star. The speed at which the light flashes across the sky is exhilarating. But have you ever stopped to consider that whatever type of debris is falling into our orbit is actually in the process of burning up. It is being consumed and the heat that is generated as the object deteriorates is the light which we see. Pretty quickly, that object burns out and the light ceases. If it's big enough, it breaks through our atmosphere and lands with a giant thud somewhere on the planet as a blackened rock.
Contrast that with a Star. A Star provides the same kind of brilliant light, but over a much longer period of time. It too is being consumed, but not so quickly and the result is that it provides light in the darkness for many years to come.
Which would you rather be?
So often we structure our lives for the fast payouts. The problems that come from this are compounded when we are leader. Burnout is more common to the leader who lives like a meteor - flashy, fast, never slowing down and unable to take the long road of working with a few people to train them to help us.
This was the lesson Moses needed to learn in Exodus 18:13-27. Here we find the prescription for a ministry that is not so prone to burnout, but is set to shine like the stars in the heavens for many years to come.
"When his father-in-law saw all that Moses was doing for the people, he said, 'What is this you are doing for the people? Why do you alone sit as judge, while all these people stand around you from morning till evening?'
Moses answered him, 'Because the people come to me to seek God’s will. Whenever they have a dispute, it is brought to me, and I decide between the parties and inform them of God’s decrees and instructions.'
Moses’ father-in-law replied, 'What you are doing is not good. You and these people who come to you will only wear yourselves out. The work is too heavy for you; you cannot handle it alone. Listen now to me and I will give you some advice, and may God be with you. You must be the people’s representative before God and bring their disputes to him. Teach them his decrees and instructions, and show them the way they are to live and how they are to behave. But select capable men from all the people—men who fear God, trustworthy men who hate dishonest gain—and appoint them as officials over thousands, hundreds, fifties and tens. Have them serve as judges for the people at all times, but have them bring every difficult case to you; the simple cases they can decide themselves. That will make your load lighter, because they will share it with you. If you do this and God so commands, you will be able to stand the strain, and all these people will go home satisfied'" (Exodus 18:14-23).
Compassion Is Never A Bad Precedent
Bible illustrator Steven May, in his work THE STORY FILE, shares the following:
On July 3, 1988, an American navy cruiser, thinking itself to be under attack by an Iranian F-14, gunned down an Iranian airliner containing 290 civilian passengers, killing them all. Polls revealed that most Americans were against paying compensation to the Iranian victims' families; the hostage crisis was still fresh in many minds. In spite of this, President Reagan approved compensation.
http://www.amazon.com/The-Story-File-Contemporary-Illustrations/dp/1565635248
"Afterward," May continues, "he was asked by reporters if such payment would send the wrong signal. His response was, 'I don't ever find compassion a bad precedent.' Revenge may be easier to practice, but compassion demonstrates the heart of God."
Good leadership is compassionate leadership, and recognizes that compassion is not subject to public opinion.
"Put on then, as God's chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive" (Colossians 13:12-13).
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