Why Responsibility Is Essential
by Dan Jones, M.D.
Genesis 6:11-22
Now the earth was corrupt in God's sight and was full of violence. God saw how corrupt the earth had become, for all the people on earth had corrupted their ways. So God said to Noah, "I am going to put an end to all people, for the earth is filled with violence because of them. I am surely going to destroy both them and the earth. So make yourself an ark of cypress [c] wood; make rooms in it and coat it with pitch inside and out.
I am going to bring floodwaters on the earth to destroy all life under the heavens, every creature that has the breath of life in it. Everything on earth will perish. But I will establish my covenant with you, and you will enter the ark—you and your sons and your wife and your sons' wives with you. You are to bring into the ark two of all living creatures, male and female, to keep them alive with you. Two of every kind of bird, of every kind of animal, and of every kind of creature that moves along the ground will come to you to be kept alive. You are to take every kind of food that is to be eaten and store it away as food for you and for them."
Noah did everything just as God commanded him.
I love verse 22. “Noah did everything just as God commanded.” We noted in the previous devotional that it required unusual faith on the part of Noah to begin this unusual project. That first day, it must have been difficult to gather the first materials and begin the construction. But just try to imagine at about day 50 how tough it must have been to carry on with that tough task. He had to be getting lots of criticism and scoffing. The work was hard. He was building a huge boat where there was no water. Just as faith got him started, a sense of responsibility was necessary for him to push on every day with the difficult task. It allowed him to “do everything just as God commanded him.”
In our lives as health professionals, responsibility is an essential trait. Over and over again, I have seen very bright health professionals fail in their efforts to help with a medical problem because they lacked this critical quality - a sense of responsibility. And over and over, I have seen health professionals overcome less knowledge and less training than others in successfully helping a patient with a difficult problem because of a keen sense of responsibility.
And no matter how accomplished or how smart, there is no substitute for responsibility when that is what is needed. A good friend taught me a lesson in this. We were working together in a “mobile clinic” in a very isolated area. My friend happened to be the senior physician on our team and a highly respected expert in a sub-specialty. It was a surprise to many on our team that he would participate in this mobile clinic at all. Late in the day as we were finishing the clinic and preparing for a little rest and dinner, I saw him helping a patient into the back seat of his car to transport him to the nearest hospital for intravenous fluids. The patient was an elderly man, emaciated and weak, and very dirty. I rushed to help and strongly suggested we have one of our younger doctors do this unpleasant chore. He politely brushed me aside with the words, “He is my patient. He is my responsibility.”
In that rural setting, my friend was not able to use his highly specialized skills to help. What needed to be done could be done by someone else. The patient was not a person of prominence. But my friend himself did what was needed out of a sense of responsibility.
Lord, in difficult circumstances, please don’t allow me to fail my responsibility to you and my patients.
Dan Jones, M.D., MACP, FAHA, a board-certified Internist, a former medical missionary to Korea, professor of medicine at the University of Mississippi School of Medicine, Dean of the School of Medicine, and Chancellor of the University of Mississippi until 2015. Dr. Dan Jones is a member of CMDA.
Dr. Jones welcomes any comments or questions about what he has written and can be reached at - djones@umc.edu
Rounds with the Master, Spiritual Pearls from the Great Physician Devotionals are released every Monday and Thursday.
