P was sharing that when it came to healthcare, there is the heart and the art, besides the science of medicine. A good physician is one who has all three in the right proportions so that his or her patients will respond positively, to treatment both physically as well as psychologically.
Good doctors not only use their medical knowledge and skills to heal patients but they are able to build a relationship of trust with each patient, bringing reassurance and hope as well as the buy-in from each patient to do their utmost to restore their own bodies to health.
The danger is when a doctor loses heart and becomes jaded. All actions become mechanical and the practice of medicine becomes mere science, a depersonalized process lacking any soul. The loss of heart, and art, not only affects the physician's patients, but all he or she comes into contact with - colleagues, juniors, families, the entire healthcare system. The loss of heart taints everyone and everything.
Heart, or passion, is fundamental to everything we do in life, especially when it comes to our vocations and our ministries. When we are fired up with passion, our hearts are purest, we are unafraid and undeterred by obstacles; we have clear focus and we pour all our energies into hours of studying and practising skills to become good at what we do.
As practitioners, leaders or ministers, we continue to sacrifice comfort and personal wellbeing in order to help others. We aim to serve others always. We hone and use our skills so that others may benefit most. We keep on learning. And we maintain open and humble hearts to keep on running the race. We become people who inspire others to become like us: to live the art and science of being with heart.
It is not easy to remain unsullied by fame, fortune, position and power for when one is good at what one does, the attendant approbation and material rewards can change motivations and dispositions. Then there is the required staying power, the sheer grit to just keep plodding along when the going gets tough. When one loses heart, which invariably happens, how does one regain it?
I have a personal prayer which grew from the years where I turned my back on God and found myself in desperate and straitened circumstances. Because I could not experience the peace and joy of having Him in my life, I sought a purity of heart that would give me the ability to see Him again in my life. When I came back to the Lord and surrendered my life, I prayed daily that I would always be able to see His face and hear His voice in my life so as to always know where I should go. I know that if everything I am, all that I do is in God alone, then He will always teach me to walk with integrity and act with passion, compassion and wisdom.
I won't say that I do not lose heart in life, or grow a little deaf from time to time., for when the winds blow a little stronger, and the waves rise a little higher, fear does enter my heart. I am not good enough. I cannot do this. Who am I kidding - others are so much better than I am, how can I possibly make a difference? Here is where I am called to come back to the correct disposition of heart, to return to the One in whom I live and move and have my being.
Matthew 6:33 encourages: Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you. In some Bible translations it says set your heart on the kingdom of heaven. So set your heart on Jesus. When your heart is in the right place, you will have faith that moves mountains and transforms a multitude of hearts. Just as there is a science of being, there is an art of being that can only expand by being refined by the Maker Himself.
Good doctors not only use their medical knowledge and skills to heal patients but they are able to build a relationship of trust with each patient, bringing reassurance and hope as well as the buy-in from each patient to do their utmost to restore their own bodies to health.
The danger is when a doctor loses heart and becomes jaded. All actions become mechanical and the practice of medicine becomes mere science, a depersonalized process lacking any soul. The loss of heart, and art, not only affects the physician's patients, but all he or she comes into contact with - colleagues, juniors, families, the entire healthcare system. The loss of heart taints everyone and everything.
Heart, or passion, is fundamental to everything we do in life, especially when it comes to our vocations and our ministries. When we are fired up with passion, our hearts are purest, we are unafraid and undeterred by obstacles; we have clear focus and we pour all our energies into hours of studying and practising skills to become good at what we do.
As practitioners, leaders or ministers, we continue to sacrifice comfort and personal wellbeing in order to help others. We aim to serve others always. We hone and use our skills so that others may benefit most. We keep on learning. And we maintain open and humble hearts to keep on running the race. We become people who inspire others to become like us: to live the art and science of being with heart.
It is not easy to remain unsullied by fame, fortune, position and power for when one is good at what one does, the attendant approbation and material rewards can change motivations and dispositions. Then there is the required staying power, the sheer grit to just keep plodding along when the going gets tough. When one loses heart, which invariably happens, how does one regain it?
I have a personal prayer which grew from the years where I turned my back on God and found myself in desperate and straitened circumstances. Because I could not experience the peace and joy of having Him in my life, I sought a purity of heart that would give me the ability to see Him again in my life. When I came back to the Lord and surrendered my life, I prayed daily that I would always be able to see His face and hear His voice in my life so as to always know where I should go. I know that if everything I am, all that I do is in God alone, then He will always teach me to walk with integrity and act with passion, compassion and wisdom.
I won't say that I do not lose heart in life, or grow a little deaf from time to time., for when the winds blow a little stronger, and the waves rise a little higher, fear does enter my heart. I am not good enough. I cannot do this. Who am I kidding - others are so much better than I am, how can I possibly make a difference? Here is where I am called to come back to the correct disposition of heart, to return to the One in whom I live and move and have my being.
Matthew 6:33 encourages: Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you. In some Bible translations it says set your heart on the kingdom of heaven. So set your heart on Jesus. When your heart is in the right place, you will have faith that moves mountains and transforms a multitude of hearts. Just as there is a science of being, there is an art of being that can only expand by being refined by the Maker Himself.
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