Triage

As a small business owner, there is always a new problem to solve. I am reminded of a great scene in the movie Men In Black where Will Smith's character excitedly tells veteran agent Tommy Lee Jones the big news that the alien told him the world was coming to an end. "Did he say WHEN?" was the agent's deadpan response. There is always some problem to deal with. Currently, four out of five pieces of equipment my business owns are waiting on repair, and half of our family vehicles are in the repair shop. It happens. The medical people call prioritizing problems triage. You focus on solving the immediate most critical problem first, and you don't worry about the others just yet.

There's a fascinating scripture passage showing this in action in Acts 20. Paul and his friends are in Troas and Paul is preaching to the believers in an upper room on the third floor. A young man named Eutychus is sitting in the window and about midnight falls asleep because Paul was preaching on and on. (Anyone else here nod off in church? I once was falling asleep so badly that my grandmother dug around in her purse for her narcolepsy medicine and handed it to me across three other people. Ouch.) Eutychus fell asleep and fell over backwards out the window all the way to the ground, and was taken up dead. Paul took the young man in his arms, and he came alive again. And get this-- they want back upstairs and Paul preached until sunrise and then continued on his journey. He solved the immediate problem and then went about his business.

The first thing a person in our Western culture does when they get a deadly cancer diagnosis is to get out their phone and google it. Then when they find out the mortality rate, they freak. (We tell new people to our cancer group on Facebook to stay away from Doctor Google, and to listen instead to their own doctors about their situation.) The mind panics, and you start mentally hyperventilating. "But, but, but, but...!" My own heart was dealing with my own future death and I anxiously asked God about my wife and children, and His immediate response was

My grace is sufficient.

God was quoting 2 Corinthians 12:7-10. In it Paul writes:

To keep me from becoming conceited because of these surpassingly great revelations, there was given me a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan to torment me. Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. But he said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ's sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.

God was telling me that the needs of my family when I am gone are not something I needed to be concerned about at present. His grace will be sufficient for them, and he will take care of them. I don't need to worry about their future. I need to deal with the present.

When you're in a difficult situation, you must perform triage-- what is the most critical problem? For people with my kind of cancer, the first problem to solve is "WHO do I go to for medical care?" Which leads to the second point of decision: "WHAT specific treatment do I need to get, if any?" Next you solve the logistics problem. "WHERE do I go to get this treatment?" After this, your next question is "HOW will I continue working during treatment?" I can probably answer that one for you-- you probably can't. I mean, go for it-- but be mentally prepared to not be able to work much during treatment, and perhaps not afterwards-- not like you used to. Adjustments will need to be made, and that's just how it is. Here's the thing-- you DON'T need to solve all these problems all at once, and yesterday.

When Jesus' disciples were stressing the details, he pulled them aside and calmed their hearts by saying (Matthew 6:25-34 NIV):

"Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important that food, and the body more important than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?

And why do you worry about clothes. See how the lilies of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. If that is how God clothes the grass of the field , which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? So do not worry, saying, "What shall we eat?' or "What shall we drink?' or 'What shall we wear?' For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own."

So, take a deep breathe. Ask God to help you perform triage-- to solve today's most immediate and pressing problem. And then the next problem... and the next. Don't panic-- God has got this.