“Inshallah!”
A friend of mine practiced nursing overseas for a year. She worked at a state-of-the-art hospital in Dubai. Besides being paid extremely well, she found the unit she worked on to be well-stocked with modern equipment and computers. However, she had one complaint.
If she needed a “stat” x-ray performed or “stat” blood work done, she always got the same answer when she called the x-ray department or the lab. My nursing friend would convey the urgency of her request and ask if it could be done immediately. Each and every time, she heard this answer,” Inshallah.”
This is Arabic for “God willing”. My friend felt that nothing was done urgently. She never got used to this answer. She perceived it as procrastination.
It’s an often heard expression and if you think about it, it’s very true. Things will be done on time if God wills it that way. If another more urgent request came up, well, the lab technician didn’t sweat it. He simply did whichever he deemed more important first. He felt if God willed the first request to be done right away, then another more pressing situation wouldn’t have taken place. He wasn’t stressed out at all unlike my fellow nursing friend.
Of course, all of our own requests take precedence, don’t they? Isn’t that how we feel? Yet, think of the lab technician. He was constantly bombarded with urgent demands from doctors and nurses hospital-wide. How does one cope with that?
One request at a time. Obviously, the most pressing problem would be dealt with first. My friend felt that the lab technician should be working at break-neck speed attempting to satisfy all of the demands. He should at least look a little bit worried trying to keep up!
Yet, I think the man had it right.
One of my favourite priests, Fr. Maurice Restivo, spoke of driving in a blizzard from Niagara Falls home to Windsor. He could have spent time worrying about driving in the snow. The fear would be real as many cars were noticed in the ditch along the snowy route. Or, he could have invested that same energy into driving carefully.
Fr. Restivo says it’s about doing what you can with what you have…and then leaving the rest to God. He says instead of worrying about failing at something, try to invest your emotional energy into performing well.
God’s will. It is an interesting concept, isn’t it? God gave us all free will to choose right or wrong. When we pray to God for something, how often do we pray for “our will” to be done? Would we be less stressed if we accepted God’s will more often?
Malcolm Muggeridge was a British journalist who interviewed Mother Teresa, now known as St. Teresa. He was so impressed by her that he became a Catholic at the age of 79. In an excerpt from his book, “Something Beautiful for God: Mother Teresa of Calcutta”, Muggeridge wrote:
“Somehow the notion of putting specific requests to God strikes me as unseemly, if not absurd. I squirm when I hear trendy clergyman asking God to attend to our balance of payments, or to adjust the terms of trade more in accordance with the interests of underdeveloped countries, or to ensure, in a forthcoming general election, that the best man wins…I can never find anything to say to God except: Thy will be done.”
Yet, it is written, in Matthew 7:7:
“Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.”
Deep concepts. God’s will. I need to start believing that the good Lord wants the best for me and to have a deeper faith. Only then, will my worries, like some cars in a blizzard, go by the wayside.
myowncalcuttablog.com 