Outline- Christian Caregiving 1- Human Health as Christ-likeness

Outline- Christian Caregiving 1- Human Health as Christ-likeness
·        All Christians are called to be caregivers, though some will have a special gift for it (Rom 12:5-6).
·        Hindrances to caring:
o   Not feeling like an “expert” (psychologist/psychiatrist/counselor).
o   Not having a “quick fix”.
o   The community should be the normal place for healing (while calling on the help of “experts” if necessary). We are not “experts” and we do not have “quick fixes”. We are people willing to sit in the uncomfortable mess with people and call on God in hope.
·        What is a healthy human being?
o   We are not healthy by just ‘not having a problem’. Just pulling weeds makes a patch of dirt, not a garden. 
o   We try to be ‘health-centered’, rather than ‘problem-centered’.
o   Health looks like a human being continuously being shaped into the image of Christ. This means being his disciples/apprentices to learn his ways and character. We call on him to be Lord of our lives- Trusting him to know what is best for us. This is to live in the kingdom of God- to have God’s will done in our lives. 
o   As we care for people we keep God’s goal for them in mind (Christ-likeness- Gal 4:19; Gal 5:22-24; 1 Cor 13; Matt 5:48).
·        How does God’s goal (of Christ-likeness) for humanity help us as we care for people?
o   The help we offer has to be in line with God’s goal for a person.
o   This goal means God might be more concerned about your character than your comfort.
§  Don’t misunderstand, God cares about your suffering, but He also cares more about your long-term healing than your immediate healing.
o   This healing is God’s job, not ours. It’s not all up to us to make a person better. Our job is to compassionately walk with a person as we seek after God. We can let go of the pressure to ‘fix’ the person.

o   We can let go of the pressure to be an ‘expert’. If a fully healed person looks like Jesus, then caregivers need healing too. We are companions along the way, rather than an expert. We are on the same path and neither of us has arrived yet.  

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Theology of Sex

Image
I spoke about abortion and the unborn in recent posts so I thought I should probably be clear on my theology of sex just to give it all a context.               When people found out that I was in seminary a common topic they would bring up for discussion was Dan Brown’s novel “The DaVinci Code”. They would look at me with scandal in their eyes and ask me about what I thought of Jesus being married.             One of the contradictions in the book was that it was somewhat based around a 12 th century Gnostic group in France sometimes called the Cathars. Gnosticism was a Heresy that has been with us for a long time. One of the main points of Gnosticism is that they deny the goodness of creation. In Gnosticism an evil god created the world, and it was a better and more pure God that came to rescue us from this evil physical material world. The Gnostics believed that the body was a kind of prison for the soul and that the true Gnostic found a way to free the soul from its sla
Read more

Christmas with the Grinch

Image
The Grinch hated Christmas! The whole Christmas season! Now, Please don't ask why. No one quite knows the reason. It could be his head wasn't screwed on just right. It could be, perhaps, that his shoes were too tight. But I think that the most likely reason of all may have been that his heart was two sizes too small. But, Whatever the reason, His heart or his shoes, he stood there on Christmas Eve, hating the Whos,             Christmas seems to always include a Grinch. There is always someone who just doesn't get caught up in the season. The decorations are offensive to their eyes. The music annoys them. They feel busier than they want to be. There are more people in the stores. There is no parking. The streets are slippery.  And, they are resentful at the social pressure to conform to the season.  In response to "Merry Christmas" inwardly they "Bah Humbug".             Of course some of us have good reasons to not be in th
Read more

Fight Club and Buddhism

Image
This is a paper I did in university in 2003. I presented it at the University of Lethbridge at the Religious Studies Conference. The Violent Vehicle:  Fight Club as a Buddhist Path to Enlightenment 4/1/2003 Fight Club  is a 1999 American film based on the 1996  novel of the same name  by  Chuck Palahniuk . The film was directed by  David Fincher  and stars  Edward Norton ,  Brad Pitt , and  Helena Bonham Carter . [1] Besides painfully obvious utterances by Edward Norton’s character, such as “I was the Zen master” [i] and his haiku writing, the movie Fight Club has many Buddhist parallels.  Edward Norton’s character is unnamed (hinting at Anatman ) and will be referred to as ‘Jack’.  His life loosely parallels the Life of the Buddha, as he begins to realize that there is something oddly not right about existence ( Dukkha ), he sets forth on a journey to learn how to quench his discomfort.  On this journey he must deal with the ideas of self, suffering, and possible
Read more