February 10, 1999
COMMENTARY:
Lessons learned from our
pastor's hospital bedside
___By Paul Appleby
___First Baptist Church, Paris
___At no other time in a person's life are spiritual issues confronted so directly as during hospitalization. The meaning and purpose of life, death and suffering are brought into one's thinking.
___This also is true in the life of our church. On Dec. 28, 1998, Sid Young, pastor of First Baptist Church in Paris, entered a Dallas hospital for surgery. Because of complications from infection, he was admitted to the intensive care unit, where he remains in critical but stable condition.
___We know afflictions come as part of life, without explanation. How many times have I heard: "Why did this happen? Such a wonderful man. Why would God allow this to occur?"
___As a church, we are learning to put our arms around each other and say: "I just don't know. I cannot give you a simple theory that explains everything--and really explains nothing."
___We are learning God has not given us the answer. He just says there is the fact of affliction. Assuredly, we know the important thing is we must not despair.
___Dr. Sid always tells us we are a work in progress. Never could we have realized how true this is. God is working us out--that we might achieve certain ends, that we might be made fit for heaven.
___The Apostle Paul tells us our afflictions are the weights of glory. God is working us out to achieve these glorious treasures--in our case, perhaps, the glory of patience.
___We are allowing God to bring us to the point that we can stand like flint and, with great patience, win the victory.
___We also are discovering God wants us to develop the kind of heart that he has for us--a heart of empathy and sympathy. In the end, we will be able to say, "I have been there; I know how you feel."
___But the greatest lesson is to come. All the agony and suffering is but for a moment. Regardless of the outcome, we are trying not to look at just today. We are looking beyond to the unseen--the spiritual world and the eternity beyond --and get it in perspective. It is just for the moment.
___Just as a diamond is created under much heat and pressure, so God works in our lives, to make us shine like diamonds and reflect the love and grace of our Lord and Savior.
___We accept that God has an absolute and perfect right to do with our pastor as he pleases. And although everything may seem to be working together for bad, we will remember the Lord knows what he is doing.
___Someday, with a new perspective, we will appreciate and thank God for every circumstance of life--even that which we now are undergoing.
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