Bear with me, this is going to seem like a long shot but I’m going to try and link in two completely different topics in two completely different areas without looking too much like a try-hard.

In the retail industry one of the most cliché phrases to hear is ‘the customer is always right’, which any retail employee will tell you is almost never the case. Well, with more and more people beginning to treat the health care system and hospitals as retail establishments, patients often bring this mentality with them. The patient is always right. Wrong. I’m not saying it doesn’t happen – of course you know your body better than anyone else, you know exactly what and how you’re feeling and can notice the tiniest of changes before they can be seen by anyone on the outside but…It isn’t the patient’s job to be right. Doctors and nurses and every other health professional has been trained for years before they’re qualified and even then they still have to continuously learn and study to make sure they’re staying up to date and can provide efficient, modern treatment and care.

Being a patient isn’t something anyone is trained for and so what do you do when you’re put into a situation where you don’t know what to do? You apply all of those little bits of general knowledge you’ve accumulated over the years and apply it. You reassure yourself that you aren’t completely helpless and facing the unknown because you know something, anything. That something gives you confidence and suddenly all of those little bits of information become complete truths to you and you live by them whether they’re the best pieces of information or not. Then you start relaying this information to others, you begin to question when people say things that don’t match up to what you know and you become overly defensive when it comes to the idea that you may be wrong or misinformed. You believe you know best so you want to do things your way, you want it to all be according to your plan because you know yourself better than anyone so you must be the only one who knows what’s best for you.

Now, change the word ‘patient’ to ‘child of God’ and the health care setting to life and you’ve got the same situation. Life isn’t something we come into trained for. You don’t go through years of study and torturous assessments before God finally says ‘yes! Go! You’re ready to walk on your own now. Have a great time and I’ll see you in 80 years and you can tell me all about it.’ We come into this life with a sole reliance on the one who knows more – who knows every hair on our head, thought in our heart, and skill in our repertoire. He knows what we will do, who we will become and the life we will live and He knows this all before we are even born.

For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well. My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw my unformed substance; in your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them – Psalm 139:13-16

We were never made to walk alone, to know, ultimately, what is best for us and yet isn’t that what we try and do every day. We trust God to look after others, we pray for the salvation of those who do not yet know Him, for the health of our loved ones and the provision of life saving resources to those in third world countries but how often do we turn to Him with full trust when we face the unknown? How often do we only turn to Him once we’ve run out of our own ideas and failed at our own solutions? How many times do you find yourself praying ‘Lord, I need your help, I’ve tried and tried to fix this problem, I’ve run out of ideas’ only after you’ve spent days, weeks, months trying to sort out every problem relying only on your own/worldly knowledge?

Just like the patient who pits themselves against the health care workers with their little bits of knowledge, trying to reassure themselves and feel confident that they can provide their own solution so too do we pit ourselves against God whenever we refuse to acknowledge that He truly does have our best interest at heart and He truly does know best.

I don’t know about you but every day I learn something new about myself, I discover a new strength or weakness, I change my mind about something, I learn I actually do have an opinion on a topic I’ve sought to avoid for months (read: American election). So doesn’t that mean that how I respond to a situation, how I act in trials and triumphs changes depending upon what I know about myself? How and why would I rely on an ever changing, fickle source of information and self-purported expertise when I could instead turn to the one who knows me best and only wants the best for me?

Each day I lay my life at the feet of God and pray that He will do with it according to His plan for me. Each day I inevitably pick back up part of my life with the idea in my head that I can do a better job and I have a better plan; and each day I realise my mistake from the day before and turn my reliance back to God. It’s a work in progress and I’m sure that I’ll never get it 100% right but the more I trust and rely on God and His love for me the more time I can put into actually serving Him and living the life He has planned for me.

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Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you; I appointed you a prophet to the nations – Jeremiah 1:5

For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them – Ephesians 2:10

Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths – Proverbs 3:5-6