What Do Hospitals Need?

Romans 5:3-5

Watch on YouTube – Watch on Facebook

What does every hospital need? Hospitals, of course, need a lot of doctors and a lot of nurses, but they also need a lot of patients. Sorry for that bad dad joke, but I’ve always thought it a little bit curious that that word patient to describe the residents in the hospital is the same word for what those individuals need for their stay in the hospital. It’s important for patients to have patience. And the reason is, is because the healing process often takes quite a long time.

Even if the doctors and the experts can figure out exactly what’s wrong with you, it perhaps takes a while for a treatment plan to be formed, for it to be implemented, and for its effect to be had on the body. Even in the best case scenario often a lot of patience is needed.

Yes, patience is something that comes as a result of suffering. As we endure suffering we quite often will learn patience. The Apostle Paul speaks about this a bit in Romans chapter five. When he says this,

We also rejoice confidently in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces patient endurance, and patient endurance produces tested character, and tested character produces hope. And hope will not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, who was given to us. (Romans 5:3-5)

Quite often when the Apostle Paul is talking about suffering, he talks about persecution that Christians endure. But I think we can also apply what he says here to even physical sufferings too. And he says that as a result of physical suffering, there is patient endurance.

Have you ever found yourself praying to God? God, give me patience. I myself have made that request. I’ve heard my wife make that request and others make that request of God. I’ve also wondered, how does God answer that request? Does he do it by just, zap, all of a sudden you have more patience? Or does maybe God do it through sufferings that we endure? Is maybe God at work, much like a parent who maybe doesn’t give his child everything that he wants immediately because he doesn’t want to spoil the child. But to teach rather the child an important lesson and to build character.

So often, God can use sufferings to teach us patience. As the Apostle Paul writes, Suffering produces patient endurance. Patient endurance produces tested character. And so there you got the character building. But then he goes on to say that tested character produces hope. That perhaps seems a bit strange to us as we think about sufferings that we go through throughout our life, especially if we’ve had to go through multiple severe sufferings. It doesn’t seem to push people towards hope. It seems to push people towards despair. And yet God in his word says that all of this produces hope.

For us as Christians it does. The Apostle Paul lays out the reason hope will not be put to shame because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts by the Holy Spirit who has given to us. God, by his grace, has given us His Holy Spirit and has created faith in our hearts to believe in trust, His love that He has shown for us through His Son, Jesus Christ. To know that our sins are fully taken away, to know that we are His children, to know most importantly of the inheritance that he has prepared for us in Heaven. To be confident that God is going to rescue you from your sufferings.

It might not always be in this lifetime. At times God is gracious, he does give us healing of our bodies, more importantly, He is looking forward to the day when he brings us out of this life filled with so much sorrow and suffering and pain and death to bring us to be with him forever and heaven. We have a certain hope when it comes to heaven. A hope that’s guaranteed because of Christ what He has done for us. So what can we learn from suffering? What does it teach us? Suffering teaches us patience as we wait, especially for God’s deliverance and his plan to bring us to be with him forever one day in heaven. Amen.