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Advent HOPE Sabbath School

John Shin

How God Led Me Through Medical School

So when I started medical school, I realized that life could get 1 dimensional very quickly.

There was this immense pressure to do well academically.

And the course load was unlike anything I've experienced before.

So I realized that keeping up a strong devotional life, keeping my Sabbaths and guarding the edges of my Sabbath would be a test of faith, because time was at such a premium like I'd never experienced before.

And I felt like there weren't enough hours in a day to get done all the study that needed to get done how many of you can relate to that just not if I had 48 hours in a day I would be fine Early on in my medical school career, I was in the library studying, and 1 of my classmates came up to my cubicle out of nowhere and he announced to me, he said, John, I've decided that I'm not going to go to church anymore.

And I was kind of startled from my studies, and I was like, OK, why?

And he said that he decided to stop going to church because he said he's aiming for a competitive residency, and he could not afford to lose 24 hours worth of studying per week.

And he said, you know what, if I'm going to achieve my goals, I just can't afford to do that.

And that kind of left me thinking, you know, well then what about me?

You know, will I be OK losing 24 hours every week, sacrificing?

But I found strength in the promise of Matthew 6, 31 through 33.

Jesus says, therefore, do not worry, saying, what shall we eat, or what shall we drink, or what shall we wear?

For after all these things the Gentiles seek.

For your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things.

But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you." You see, for a student passing your courses, getting adequate grades, these things are, this is a basic need, like food and clothing.

And God tells us to trust him with these needs of life.

And once we trust him, he says, then trust that if we seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, he will take care of all these things for us.

So I realized that I needed to do well in my studies in order to become a physician for God.

I needed to focus my time on guarding my devotional life and keeping my status quo with Him.

So I decided, Lord, I'm going to claim this promise and I'm going to leave it up to You to decide how to realize this promise in my life.

Because you see, as I went through my studies, and as I went through these exams, I realized that if you study at the expense of your faith, you will be building for yourself a foundation of faithlessness.

A foundation of faithlessness because you will set a precedent of making things happen by your strength and on your own terms and you will be unable at the end of it to feel a need for God.

Because this condition cannot help but to breed pride.

When you attribute everything that you accomplish to yourself, what defense can you have against pride?

You are left to conclude, I did this on my own strength.

However, if you ask God to guide you in every step of your studies, your time in school will serve as a testimony to God's faithfulness, and your ability to trust in him will grow commensurate.

So I made it a point, before I studied, every time I sat down to study, to pray before I studied, to acknowledge that on my own, I was incapable of learning and retaining the material that I needed to retain in order to be the doctor that God wanted me to be.

And I asked him to enable me to study for his glory and not my own.

I'm saying, Lord, I want to be a physician that can take care of your children.

So every time I sat down to study, I prayed that prayer.

You know, my classmate, who decided to not go to church, He said that trusting God was nice and all, but it wasn't going to give him the grades that he needed to become the success that he wanted to be.

And he said that any success he experienced would come as a result of his own hard work.

He studied very hard at the expense of his faith.

You see, there was this African tribe who was, this village was experiencing a shortage of clean water and it was a crisis.

So a lot of humanitarian effort was sent in to help them.

And 1 missionary visited the tribe to see how he could help.

And as they were setting up the facilities to help them obtain clean water and dig new wells and things like that.

This missionary visited the home of 1 tribesman, who in his humble little abode, he saw at the foot of the table this metal canister.

And He asked the tribesman, what is that canister?

And the tribesman said, I don't know, but I found this in an abandoned camp not too far from here, a camp that some NGOs used to use a few years ago.

I have no idea what this is, but it makes a darn good chair, so I brought it back with me.

Well, the missionary examined the object, and he discovered that it was a high-efficiency water filtration device.

How ironic to find this high-efficiency water filtration system in the home of a tribesman who's dying for the lack of pure water.

But because the tribesman had no idea for what purpose this device was made, he had no way of unlocking its full potential.

He had no idea what it was made to do, so he couldn't use it the way it was designed to be used.

The missionary knew what purpose that water filtration device was made, so he was able to use it the way it was intended to be used.

You see, You might go far on the talent that you have, but only the God who made you knows for what purpose you were made and how to unlock your full potential.

You can count on that, and only He knows what that purpose is.

But if you decide to run your own life on your own terms, your native abilities and your hard work, it might bring you great success by the world's standards.

But compared to what God had planned for you, your accomplishments were just a pale shadow of what your life could have been.

You see, you will be using your life as a chair when God had intended to bring you life, when God had intended to use you to bring life, eternal life, to those around you.

And then as a student, I found that it was very easy to get overwhelmed by feelings of fear and anxiety.

See, there were so many tests that we had to pass, so many important career decisions that we had to make, so many ways that you could prevent yourself from succeeding.

The fear of failure, I found, could be debilitating.

And many people in my class experienced this, and they had to get help, because they couldn't get over this fear of failure.

You know, if you're a student today and you struggle with these fears, you have to understand where this fear comes from.

A couple years ago, I had the privilege of going to Kauai, which is the smallest of the Hawaiian islands.

And on that island, I had a chance to do something that was incredibly fun.

Has anyone here ever done powered hang gliding before?

Well, if you have a chance, you should do it.

What it is, is imagine a tricycle, OK, basically with bigger wheels, with a hang glider strapped to the top, 2 seats, and a propeller in the back.

The pilot sits in the front, you sit in the back, and you take off, and you give your guardian angel a full-time job.

And Most of my friends were afraid to go on this, but I was like, sign me up, you know?

And I went up there and boy, you can experience kawaii like never before.

The open cockpit, the air rushing back, and I was having the time of my life.

And then in the middle of the ride, the pilot turned back and smiled.

And he said, hey, you want to try steering for a bit?

And the moment he moved his hands, boy, my heart rate.

This cold sweat appeared on my forehead and for some reason the hand glider started going down.

And then the pilot was like, hey just push it, push it, you know push it.

And then finally he goes, all right, I think I'm just going to take over here.

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How God Led Me Through Medical School

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