What's Your Motivation?

I put my laptop down and clicked on Edwin's name.  "Did she prick your finger already?"  I asked him.  He nodded in response.

"Well," I said.  "Let's see...  Awesome!  Your A1C test dropped three points since your last visit here.  That's great.  Wow!  Your weight is down twelve pounds, too."

Edwin nodded again.  "When you told me I had sugar last time, I remembered how my uncle Harry had to have his leg cut off because of it and I decided to get things under control."

"You've done well," I told him.  "A drop of three percent in your A1C is the same as dropping your average sugar by 90 points.  But I have to warn you:  right now you are motivated by fear.  In my experience, fear is a really bad long-term motivator.  You need something better to get you to watch your diet than thinking about your Uncle Harry's stump."

A year later, Edwin was back in the same chair, but this time it wasn't such a happy visit.  He had gained back his twelve lost pounds -- and five more and his A1C test was up two percent."

"What happened, Ed?" I asked him.

"You were right, Dr. John," he told me.

"About what?"  I asked, not remembering our conversation.

"About fear not motivating me.  I found out I could cheat a little bit here and there and it didn't seem to effect how I felt.  Gradually, I fell right back into my old ways of eating.  I'm just a lost cause," Edwin finished dejectedly.

"No, you're not," I told him.  "You are just going to have to start doing today what you should have done a year ago."

It is difficult to become self-motivated.  When we are childen, we get up, go to school, and do our homework in response to scolding and often, the threat of punishment.  Later on, we may develop other motivators, but they are often based on the same childhood themes -- fear and guilt.

I am convinced that fear and guilt motivate people to do the minimum they believe is necessary to get by.  This is true not just in health, but also, in all aspects of life -- even the way we follow in Jesus' footsteps.

Somehow we must get to the place where we are motivated by a desire to be healthy, rather than because of a fear of disease. 

Rather than acting like Christ because we are afraid of hell, we must be motivated by a love for God and for our fellow humans.

For, these are motivations that will not burn out with time.

Just Another Block

"I need a red, six-piece block," Vince said.  He turned his attention to a large mound of Lego pieces of different colors and sizes.

As he sifted through the various blocks, he often would find a piece that was close and the discard it.  Finally, he found the right one and snapped it into place.

I must confess that to me, a stack of Lego pieces is pretty much worthless.  I can't build anything with the -- at least not without instructions.  I can't tell what pieces are usable for different things.

My son, Vince, can tell quickly what pieces he needs to build a variety of vehicles or, buildings.  The pieces stand out to him because he is a builder.  He knows his blocks, as silly as that may sound.

In a world as big as ours is, it is easy for us to feel lost as a single lego piece in a mound of seven billion lego pieces.  There is nothing that makes us truly special -- no way in which we are original, or will change the world.

In a sense, each one of is just a tiny sparrow in a huge flock of sparrows -- all chatting away and all of little worth.

Jesus said "Are not two sparrows sold for a penny?  And not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father... Fear not, therefore; you are of more value than many sparrows."  And so we are.  Not because of who we are, but because of who God is.  Somehow He can use even the squarest pegs, the smallest of sparrows, and even the oddest shaped Lego block.

It is not that we are the biggest block in the stack or, the most finely shaped, it is that the builder has a plan for us.  What is important is not who we are, but whose we are.

Our Heavenly Father looks down  into a pile of oddly shaped Lego pieces and recognizes us and knows us.  And lifting us gently from the stack, He gently places us in the place that He had planned the whole time.

For, we are valuable to Him and He loves each one of us as individuals.  In a world of seven billion, that is an amazing thing and blessing enough to lift the heart on the darkest of days.

Dealing with Depression

"Dr. Waldron," the man sitting across from me said earnestly.  "What do you think I should do?"

I looked at Nelson.  "What do you think you should do?"  It is sort of a non-answer, but sometimes those are the best.

"I just don't know," he said.  He looked down at his callused, workman's hands.  "There is a man -- a couple of men -- in my church who tell me that depression is a spiritual problem.  If I just had faith, I could go off of my medication.  God would give me real joy -- not like these medicines give."

Nelson wasn't the first person I had heard say these things.  I knew he was struggling.  He had been on medication for depression for several years.  We had tried to take him off of it a couple of times and he just didn't do well.

I shook my head.  "It isn't a good idea for you to stop your medicine," I said.  "Do you think there's some spiritual problem that you aren't dealing with?"

"No, I don't think so."

"Do you think you have a better relationship with God when you take your medicine or, when you don't?"

"Oh, definitely when I take my medicine.  When I go off, the despair gets so blinding that I can't do anything."

"Then you should keep taking it."

Depression and mental illness are hard things to deal with -- hard for those who experience them -- harder for those who have never experienced them to understand.  They are invisible, seem so less substantial than pneumonia, or diabetes, and seem so much more in someone's control than these physical maladies.  Many are certain that a person should be able to think his way out of such a mental state.

Christian people often take this a step further, saying that depression is proof of a severed relationship with God.  This is a dangerous attitude to take. 

An attitude like this discourages people in need from seeking help and encourages those who are receiving treatment to discontinue their medications.  The underlying message is "Your Depression isn't real, it is only in your head."

But depression is real.  Those who have not walked in the Valley of Severe Depression do not know how dark this vale is, but those who are there now, need light and they need hope.

I do not believe that all illness -- mental or physical -- comes because of some divine judgment. 

Why does it come?  So that we can become more like Christ and so that God can be glorified in our lives.

We must not set up barriers to prevent hurting people from receiving help.  The message of the gospel is clear.  For unwell people there is hope and there is healing, if they but come.

I believe that medication is part of that healing.

Against the Current!

One day at school, my son Vince was standing, somewhat dejected, trying to make his way down a hallway in which a large number of students were moving in the opposite direction.  He was just one, small for his age, five year old boy trying to make his way against a tide of bigger children and making no progress. 

He saw a teacher walking in the same direction he was.  He looked up at her and then, trustingly placed his small hand in hers and walked beside her down the hall.

I think about this now, as I think of Dr. Kent Brantly, who left the possibility of a comfortable life and well paying job as a physician in the United States to minister to the poor in Liberia.  I think of my mother, who left her medical practice to teach high school in Niger.  There are so many who others who step out in faith, leaving the obvious path, not moving with the flow of society.

Robert Frost tells in the poem "The Road Not Taken" about two roads which diverged in a yellow wood.  The paths are a metaphor for life and the decisions we face there and as Mr. Frost looks at the roads, he decides to take the road that has been traveled less.

So often, though, we are called not to take a road that is seldom traveled, but a road in which all of the travelers are moving in the other direction.  Walking down such a road brings fear and uncertainty.

It is in this situation, as we question our road, our motives and our destination that we realize that our heavenly Father is standing beside us -- that He was there all of the time.  In that moment, the only way to go on is to trustingly reach up and take His hand and walk with Him into the future.

All the uncertainty will be replaced with confidence, for He is there.  For, when we are not enough, God is faithful and will lead us through corridors of opposition to the place that He has prepared just for us.

If we will but take His hand and let Him lead.

Fear of Ebola

Dr. Kent Brantly has Ebola virus.  He is in Liberia and a decision has been made to fly him and another American to Atlanta, Georgia.  Obviously, the decision to fly was based on the fact that he currently is in an undermanned, underequipped hospital in West Africa and would be coming to a University facility where proper care can be given to give him the best chance of survival.

The odd thing is that upon receiving word that Kent was bringing this deadly virus to the United States, the internet became alive with commenters who were upset at the danger of such a flight and of his presence in their previously safe country.  They very strongly hold the opinion that it isn't safe or wise to allow him to bring this virus so close to home.

As far as I can tell, these comments are mainly motivated by fear.  People are afraid of this dangerous an epidemic sweeping across North America.

It is understandable too.  Every story I have read quotes the mortality figures for Ebola as having "up to ninety percent fatality," even though it has been quite a bit less than this with the current out break. 

Ebola isn't terribly contagious.  The biggest out breaks in the past, while deadly, have only killed a few hundred people, even though they take place in highly populated areas of Africa that have few facilities for dealing with such a virus.  There is reason for fear, but there is more reason for hope.

In addition, Dr. Brantly will be flying in a carefully controlled environment with numerous precautions in place to keep the virus from spreading.  He will be cared for, when he arrives at Emory University, in a facility well able to take care of him without transmission of the virus.

Most of all, I think about the reasons it is that we are flying him home for better care.  It is for compassion.  It is for healing.  It is for love.

Love and fear cannot coexist.  In the book of First John, it says "There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear..."  Kent Brantly went into a dangerous situation because of love -- love that was greater than his fear.

I would pray that he would be healed.  More than that, I would pray that Americans (and others around the world) would lay down their fear and love as Christ loved.  For only in that perfect love can we live without fear.