Patience in the midst of crisis.

Do you ever have bad days?

Like when something bad happens at work, that you can’t fix. As a doctor, that sometimes means telling someone they have cancer, or, worse, that they have lost someone they love. Other times, it’s just days at work, that seem to never end.

I noticed on one of these days that when a charity rang for donations, I was not willing to help. I was too absorbed in my current crisis to think about a nameless person on the other end of the phone hoping to get some money from me.

But that made me think, what if God was like that. Imagine praying to God, but finding out he was too involved in some other crisis around the other side of the world to be interested in my situation.

Amazingly, I don’t think God is like this.

I think he has time for even the small things, in spite of the big things.

I can’t prove this to anyone; I can simply point to some examples that appear to show that God cares for every detail.

One example is Jesus being arrested. All four gospels record the event mentioning the detail that Peter, who had a sword, drew it and struck at one of those present to arrest Jesus, cutting off his ear. The man was Malchus, a servant of the high priest. In Luke’s account, (Chpt 22:51) it mentions that Jesus then touched the man’s ear and healed it.

If I was being arrested with a view to the death penalty, I think I would be too self absorbed to be concerned with a non life-threatening injury in an enemy.

But God's ways are much higher than mine (thankfully). So we are able to pray at any hour for any need. And God does listen, and He does care.

I guess I could learn some points on patience in the midst of crisis.