15. Why the Holy Spirit is Essential in Every Christian Physician's Life

Exploring the Essential Role of the Holy Spirit for Christian Physicians

Join Inga Hofmann, MD on a practical exploration in this episode of 'Heal the Healers' as she uncovers the crucial significance of the Holy Spirit for Christian physicians. Despite often being underestimated, the Holy Spirit stands as an indispensable source of guidance, comfort, and resilience in both personal and professional aspects of life.

Through relatable anecdotes and insightful reflections, Inga delves into the tangible impact of the Holy Spirit on medical practice. Discover how embracing the Holy Spirit can provide renewed purpose, clarity in decision-making, and strength during challenging times, such as burnout.

Throughout the episode, listeners are encouraged to foster a deeper connection with the Holy Spirit, rooted in the wisdom of scripture and principles of faith. Explore how integrating guidance from the Holy Spirit into medical care can enrich both the lives of physicians and the quality of patient care.

As the episode concludes, Inga extends an invitation to engage with the Heal the Healers Mentorship Program and community, offering ongoing support and opportunities for spiritual growth.
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Transcript

Restream recording May 02, 2024 • 04:14:03 PM: 0:00

Well, hello there and welcome back to Heal the Healers. My name is Inga Hoffman. I'm the founder of Heal the Healers, the YouTube channel and the podcast, as well as the mentorship program and an upcoming physician retreat, more about that later, but today I want to welcome you to another episode of Heal the Healers. It's been a while, but I'm incredible honored and excited to be back and share some things that I have just. processed in my mind that I feel like the Lord has put on my heart that I'm walking through that I think I'm gonna bless you and help you as a Christian physician. So today I want to talk about why every physician needs the Holy Spirit. Now we are familiar with the Holy Spirit, but we might not realize how much we desperately need him. Especially as Christian physicians and how is often a bit pushed to the corner. And therefore, I really want to talk about that because that is something that has been on my mind and also had a number of conversations with other physicians with. So I want to Dive into this topic and share what I've been learning and what I believe will be helpful and hopefully serving you. So we'll go and watch the little intro and then we'll be right back after the music. So stay tuned. Welcome to the Heal the Healers podcast, where we explore the intersection of faith and medicine, Discover your God given potential and experience Christ's healing in the midst of medical burnout. I'm your host Inga Hoffman, a pediatric hematologist, physician coach, and follower of Jesus. Together, we will navigate the challenges of medicine, integrate faith into our personal and professional lives, experience spiritual renewal, and find restoration in Christ. Welcome to the heal the healers where Christ heals one physician and one patient at a time So welcome back to today's show again. I'm so excited to be here and today I want to dive into the topic of why every Physician needs the Holy Spirit and obviously that means why every Christian physician needs the Holy Spirit So I'm talking to you, but before I get started, I just feel like I'm Let me just pray us in into this lesson briefly and then we dive right in and really gain a deeper understanding from the Lord. So Lord Jesus, we thank you that we come into your presence right now as we start this lesson, help me to convey the right words, help us to gain deeper understanding of who you are, the person of Christ, our Lord. God, the father in the Holy Spirit, our advocate and our helper who lives within us, give us clarity and give us deeper understanding so that we get to know you more, that we can serve you more, that we can follow you with all our hearts and minds and everything we do in Jesus name we pray. Amen. All right. Well, I'm happy to see you. I know it's been a while, but here I'm back and I'm very excited to be here and I've processed a lot of things over the last couple months that I've been sort of absent. A lot of stuff has been going on, but I don't want to get all into that today and just share with you what is being going on and what I've been reflecting on as it relates to the Holy Spirit. And actually, before I dive into that, I want to make you aware first of all, thank you for listening. Thank you for being on this podcast or on this YouTube, wherever you're watching this. You can please follow us or follow me, this channel on YouTube. Facebook your favorite podcast platform at heal the healers where I share more awareness where I share some lessons where you can ask question you send prayer request This is all the platform for christian physicians to help and equip you in your christian walk of faith as a physician because god knows we need his encouragement. We need his guidance. We need His support and we have to rely on him and everything we do. So thank you for following. Also if you have not done so, please subscribe to the show here by clicking the subscribe button on YouTube or by subscribing to the podcast. That helps us a lot. Also, that really helps others to see the show. the podcast in the YouTube channel. So I really, really appreciate that. Thank you so, so, so much. So let's go into today's lesson though. So what I want to talk about is that I feel the Holy Spirit is often very misunderstood and I have gone through a season in my life where I felt like I really didn't quite understand the Holy Spirit, and I'm still so thirsty and hungry to gain a deeper understanding of who he is and how he helps me in my walk, because he is the spirit of the living God living inside of us, if we are followers of Jesus. So, my understanding and my observation has that a lot of times, most of what we understand about the Holy Spirit is really based on our personal church history. Or experience. What do I mean by that? A lot of times what we think about the Holy Spirit, we kind of picked up somewhere else. We might have picked that from our church where where we grew up in or the church we started going to, what is taught there, we sort of adapt. And there's a wide range of churches and many of them, most of them are all wonderful. If you're in a Bible believing church that believes the word, But the word of God with all its heart and and follows Jesus. That's that's awesome. But there was a varying degree of expression and understanding of the Holy Spirit. And sometimes that can get us sort of a little bit in a ditch that we either ignore him all together and want nothing to do with it. And that's kind of how I grew up a little bit like, okay, yes, there's the Holy Spirit and he talks to me in some ways and that's wonderful, but it seemed to be always kind of a fluffy. Think to me, not a concrete thing that I could actually be rest assured in God's presence and guidance in my life. I just later said, Oh, that must have been God when something worked out. And if it didn't work out, then I was like, probably I didn't believe right or, or put the blame on me. So there was a lot of that part going on. And then there's obviously the whole other expression. We have maybe. Things are kind of in an extreme and we don't understand it, or perhaps it's even a misrepresentation of the spirit by overemphasizing and not putting scriptural, biblical doctrine and context into everything. So that is sort of the spectrum, but I noticed that a lot of what people believe. Typically comes from their own personal experience that also dictates what they're comfortable with or what they just learned from the church they have been in. And I guess it's always good. No, I believe it's always good that we actually go back to scripture. So I started my personal journey of really wanting to encounter God more, wanting to understand him deeper and really wanting guidance. through the Holy Spirit. And I shared my story before with a patient that I prayed for. This is now a couple of years ago, 23 years ago. But that was really the guiding and the prompting of the Holy Spirit that made me pray and intercede for a very, very sick patient. And there were things that God asked me instruct me to pray for that by medical knowledge. I couldn't know. I couldn't have known, but he helped me. gain clarity and guidance on how to pray intercede for this patient. And that patient is a miracle to be here today. So praise the Lord for that. But that was really the impetus, the starting point for me to say, wow, I want more of this and for me to explore what the Holy Spirit does. How does he speak to me? How can I learn to listen to his voice? But before I go any further, let's just look at some scriptures and actually look at what the Lord says about the Holy Spirit because I think it is easy to have an opinion, but I think the most important part as Christians that we always have to go back to scripture and say, does it match up? And what is actually What does God say about the Holy Spirit? What does Jesus say about the Holy Spirit? And a lot of times people think, Oh, I need to read the gifts and of the spirit and the fruit of the spirit. And that is what it is about. And I would say. That's not the starting point. And that is just an expression. There's a lot of places we could go here, but I just want to start with Jesus's words. So let's look at what the Lord says in John 14, I encourage you read, read all of John, but read John 14, John 15, really study those words. So in 14, 15 and 16, he says, if you love me, keep my commands. And I will ask the father, and he will give you another advocate to help you and be with you forever. So, the 1st part is love, which means we really love the Lord. That is actually the Greek word for that is agape. That is an agape kind of love and love that we that is a godly love, not just like a spouse love or a brotherly love. But if you really love the Lord, you will love him forever. You keep his commands and actually scripture has this whole theme all over, starting from page one, all the way to the end. And I will ask the father and he will give you another advocate and another meaning an additional advocate to help you and be with you forever. And that is a very profound word. And then he goes on to say in the next verse, the spirit of truth, the word cannot accept him because it is neither sees him, Nor knows him, but you know him, for he lives with you, and will be in you. So, that means, it is the spirit of truth. The world doesn't understand. So when we talk about, Oh, I'm hearing from God, I'm hearing from God through the Holy Spirit. It's like foolishness to them. They don't understand. accept this. They have no understanding. The world out there has their own ways to seek God in spiritual ways. And that's where a new age and all the voodoo and crazy stuff comes in. And they're probably not finding God. They're probably finding some other spirits. But that's a side note. But but you know him because we have known Jesus. We know him. He lives in you. And he will be with you now. Isn't that amazing? He already said he lives in you before he departed. He already made it clear this Holy Spirit will be living in you on. And then he says later on in the same chapter, but the advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you. This is really important and this really spoke to me. Number one, it's the father that is sending the Holy Spirit and the Holy Spirit will teach you and remind you of everything Jesus said to them. And that also means That the Holy Spirit will teach us and remind us of everything Jesus said in his word and not just remind us, God, give us a real understanding. What is he actually saying when he speaks these parables, when he forms these miracles, like to really study it and the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit instructs us. Us in the holy scriptures. Now there was an importance why Jesus sent the spirit. He says, I am going to send you what my father has promised. And Luke, but stay in the city until you have been clothed with power from high. So he makes it very clear. Stay in Jerusalem. He says that in Acts again, stay in Jerusalem until the Holy Spirit comes. Acts 1 8, but you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you and you will be my witness in Jerusalem. and all Judea and Samaria and to the ends of the earth. So one key part that is connected with this is power and through the books of Acts, we can see powerful, wondrous miracles through and down through the early Apostles and disciples and believers to spread the gospel. And that came through the power of the Holy Spirit. Now we could study a lot about this, but I just want to point out that the Lord said is, is important. He instructs his disciples, and he also say, do not leave Jerusalem until the Holy Spirit comes, until you receive that power. And don't you and I want that power outlet? That is so important. And I think here's what's happening in our Christian life very often. We ignore that power outlet. We ignore that we have the Holy Spirit, it is kind of a fuzzy thing, and we might not appreciate how much we actually depend on him. And so we push him to the side. I sometimes hear it say, you know, in the modern days, there's often the the new Trinity, which is, you know, Jesus the son, God, the father and the Holy scriptures. And It is kind of funny, but it's kind of sad. The Holy Scriptures, of course, the Holy Bible, the Bible is important. It is the Word of God. It is our toolbox, our instruction book, everything, God's will, God's character, God's wonderful plan for redemption. Everything is in there. But without the Holy Spirit, we won't even have a deeper understanding of the Lord says, and neither, according to Jesus words, will there be any power. We have to have the Holy Spirit live in us. So, and we cannot really just function without him. Now, why do I say all this in relationship to physicians? I think as physicians, we really desperately need him. You need him for encouragement, for strength, for instruction. And honestly, saying, Hmm, that is kind of fuzzy and I don't quite understand it. And so I push it to the side. It's a bit like saying, I'm going to, you know, run a science experiment. I'm not really gonna look at a detailed protocol or maybe have a protocol from the Internet, but I'm not going to ask my mentor how to troubleshoot it. I'm not going to ask a tech to help me or to show me. I'm just going to kind of trying to run an experiment sort of off the cuff or best with a, you know, half hearted protocol. Now, if you ever done a science experiment and you have a simple protocol in the lab, often, you know, when you do it for the first time that the. Even it's written out line by line, and you don't really understand how to carry out the experiment. There's often a lot of questions you might have, and you go back to a tech or a senior postdoc or somebody in the lab and say, Hey what does that really mean over here? Am I supposed to do this or that? The Holy Spirit is in the same way. He instructs you in all things. So just because we have the Bible doesn't mean that that we have all the understanding we need to read it. We need to meditate in the board and we not need to ask the Lord through the Holy Spirit to instruct us. What does that mean for my life? What does that mean right now again? It's a little bit like you're saying, I want to be a doctor, but you know what? I'm going to skip medical school and mentorship and residency and all these things. I'm just going to read a bunch of textbooks and you will be a doctor. You wouldn't do that either. Right? But we do that with God a lot. We say, I want to be a Christian. I want to follow Jesus. But. I'm not really interested in the Holy Spirit or sometimes worse. Yeah, I want to follow Jesus, but I actually, we don't have time to read the word or pray. I'm so busy. I get to this another time and we all do that and understand that. And I talked about that in other episodes. I'm sure we circle back to it, but I want to encourage you. We love Jesus. We follow his commands, like he said in john 14. And with that, we follow his commands with all our heart and our love because we love him, not because we follow a rule book. And that is so important. So and what does the Holy Spirit really does when we have him? This is just a beautiful illustration of characteristics from the Old Testament that I really like. Isaiah 11, 2 says, The spirit of the Lord will rest on him. That's on Jesus and the spirit of wisdom and of understanding the spirit of counsel and of might, the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord. Oh, we could talk just about the fear of the Lord because God knows that is something we will need desperately. back in our lives to have the fear and reverence of the Lord is not just our God in the clouds. He is our God, our Lord, our King. And we have to have reverence and respect in his presence and just, you know, Don't treat him as a fluffy teddy bear. Oh, he loves us. No, he is a holy God and calls us to righteousness and holiness in him. So, that's another tangent. I'm sorry, I'm getting really excited, I guess, since I haven't been back for a while. But, I want you to see this. Holy Spirit is super important. So, but I think often what we're trying to do in Christian life, and I sense as physicians, we have this extra tendency to say, You know what? I can figure this out by myself because we are kind of self starters in a lot of ways, right? We muscle through medical school and through residency and through all sorts of challenging situations. And we think because we figured that part out and that was really hard. Most people cannot do what we do. That's why God picked us. You and me to do this job. That's wonderful. He gave us the gifts to do this job. Not because we are great because he made you and me great. But then we're trying to figure it out by ourselves, by our own strength. And we don't ask for help. And where does our help come from? Our help in our daily life. Struggle on the wards, but the patients having wisdom how to interact with patients having an understanding what may be a good treatment option would be beyond our medical knowledge. You need the Holy Spirit. And I think so often as physicians, because of our mentality of our upbringing, we are tied to this. I can do it by myself. And why do I say this? I know this because I'm like that too. And I had to over and over humble myself and say, no, that is prideful. That is one of the biggest sins. I mean, that's how Satan fell. So we have to humble ourselves before the Lord and say, I do not know. I need you, Holy Spirit, to instruct me in all things. And don't think I can just figure this out myself. Because truth is, you can't. And even what you think you can figure out yourself, guess who gave you that ability? It's the Lord. So have reverence for that. So the Holy Spirit does instruct us in the scriptures. So what does it say? Then he opened their minds so they could understand the scripture. Now that's Jesus talking. He opened our minds. Now the Holy Spirit is doing that for us. The same way in Romans 8 26, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we are to pray, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us through wordless groans. I've had those prayers a lot, where I did not know what to pray. Where I was distraught, distressed, maybe about a patient, maybe just stressed out and burned out, and just weeped before the Lord. And sometimes not many fancy words came out and I've talked about this and how to pray. We can pray in our spiritual prayer language and grown to the Lord and ask, just let it out kind of thing. He knows he prays on our behalf. The Holy Spirit prays through us. And I think when we understand that, that's a beautiful thing because our relationship with the Lord grows. Perhaps you are in this situation. You're like, I don't know much about the Holy Spirit and I'm just trying my best to read my Bible and pray. And I want to just ask ourselves, why, why are we so resistant? I think it's part because we're such intellectual people that the spiritual aspect is difficult for us to comprehend because we cannot put, you know, an obvious science experiment behind it. And that makes it difficult. So there is probably a limited understanding. That's why I encourage you go study the scriptures, but also there might be something going on here where we just reject him out of pride again out of this. I can figure this out on my own, and that is not a great way to to walk with the Lord. The Lord wants to help you. Jesus said to the father. You know, the Father will give us the Holy Spirit so that we have his presence in us. Like, how awesome is that? Not only is the Lord himself interceding and our high priest on behalf of us as our lamb, our sacrificial lamb and redeemer and high priest in front of the Father, but he also sent us a helper, another advocate, Who instructs us in all things, there's many more places I could go here. And I thought I'm going to actually quote some more scriptures, but I'm just going to do another part because I feel like I've already shared a lot, but I just want you to know, we need the Holy spirit more than ever. Medicine is broken. Health care is broken. Our patients are dissatisfied and struggling and we need him. So here's what I would say to you. As physicians, we need the Holy Spirit. We need him to comfort us in our distress and our burnout. We need him for direction in our professional and personal lives. Like maybe on a roadblock here with your career, you don't know where to go next. Maybe you're not happy with your job. Maybe you're struggling that work life balance everybody's looking for. And perhaps you also need instruction for your patients. In fact, I very well know that probably I can just take a good guess. We all need to know instructions for our patients, how to speak to them. How to understand their situation, how to speak into their lives, how to give them hope, how to diagnose a problem that we couldn't figure out or find a treatment plan. There's endless lists of things because the world is a broken place. Our patients have nowhere to turn and they need you, a Holy Spirit, Holy Spirit guided, not just filled, but guided physician who gives them hope. Who takes care of their physical and emotional needs and represents Jesus in their life. So I hope this encouraged you, I encourage you to go back to the scriptures. Maybe we'll do a part two of this and talk a little bit more and really study the Holy Spirit. And ask the Lord, God, I need you. I need your Holy Spirit in my life. Teach me and, and show me so that I can, I can just follow you even more. So with that, I want to thank you. Also if this resonated and to again, feel free please subscribe and share this with others so that more people and physicians can be encouraged. I also want to let you know that I have a mentorship program. I started in January. It's a beautiful thing. So if you want more instructions, guidance, support, mentorship read the scriptures, pray together, I encourage you to get on the wait list. For the Heal the Healers Mentorship Program and heal is the QR code. You can scan that and it gets you on the wait list. And when I open the membership again probably in a few weeks, then you are more than welcome to join. And it's a wonderful small little community. But it is our time to come before the Lord, learn from him. And actually, we're going to start a whole series with a deep dive on the Holy Spirit there very soon. So this is a perfect time to join. If you want to learn more about what the Holy Spirit does, how it works, how you can grow and listening to the Holy Spirit and all these things. With this, I want to thank you. I wish you a blessed day. The last day, and we'll see you on the next episode. Prayer is that you were encouraged, strengthened, and perhaps even convicted with this episode today. If this podcast has blessed you, would you help share it with your friends and colleagues and even share it on social media, also leave us a review on the podcast platform where you are listening to this content. It would help us a lot together. We can share the good news of Jesus and transform medicine, one physician and one patient at the time. Have a great day. God bless.