Many young Christians grow up with a deep desire to be missionaries. I applaud this. I’m always amazed at the devotion and dedication of those who spend years in training and go around the world for the sake of the gospel and, in the process, shun temporal reward.
But for years now, God has put something on my heart. It is that modern medicine is its own mission field — even medicine practiced in the largest city or the most provincial small town.
In “Christian” circles, one will receive great praise and encouragement for agreeing to teach the gospel in the far-flung corners of the earth. But if a young Christian says, “I want to be a neurosurgeon and work in a teaching hospital,” or “I want to deliver babies in my small town,” or “I want to treat psychiatric illnesses in the city,” it’s considered honorable, but not really very “missional.”
Yet, I can tell you that a hurting world needs the knowledge and skill, compassion and patience, wisdom and love of physician believers. This is true in Africa, in Asia, in Central America … and in Columbia, Greenville, Walhalla and Bluffton, S.C.
Incredible numbers of patients want their physicians to be willing to discuss faith, to encourage them and pray with them. It makes sense, since so many sick people are believers. Furthermore, many physicians — especially young ones — long for faith and encouragement, and yet find themselves feeling isolated and alone in the medical system. This happens because modern medical education often views faith as a thing of cultural interest, but not a thing of great relevance. But relevant it is, indeed.
Medical education and the practice of medicine can be a shocking thing to a young believer, because it exposes him or her to the depths of human suffering and also human evil. But that’s what a mission field is: a place in need of the love of Christ.
What better time or place to demonstrate it than in times of pain, suffering, fear and loss? If physicians can carry that love of Christ and that hope into the labyrinth of modern medicine where innumerable humans languish in physical and spiritual pain, then they will be missionaries indeed.
So encourage those who want to devote themselves to medicine, whether here or abroad. Pray for your physicians (and nurses and medics, techs, administrators and all the others) who daily have the opportunity to share faith, hope and love with untold numbers who have precious little of any.