Joseph Hardman was a 15-year veteran paramedic in Detroit.
On Friday, August 16, 2013 he was performing CPR on a heart attack victim as his patient was being rushed to the hospital. Then it happened. Hardman began to suffer terrible chest pains himself. By the time he and his patient reached the emergency room, both required surgery to clear blockages in their arteries. Hardman’s blockage was so severe that his doctor described it as a “widow maker.”
Fortunately, both men survived the ordeal and Hardman is being hailed as a hero for saving another man’s life by using CPR while he was suffering a heart attack himself.
With all the media attention he received, there is one question that no reporter ever asked: “What business did Joseph Hardman have performing CPR on another person, when he needed it himself? What made him think he was so healthy that he should try to help someone else? He was beset with his own heart condition. So who does he think he is trying to correct someone else’s? What a hypocrite!”
Instead the 40-year-old Hardman was praised because he did not let his own heart condition, not even his own heart attack, prevent him from saving a fellow heart attack victim. But people with problems help other people with problems all the time. Alcoholics support their fellow alcoholics and help them recover from addiction. Imperfect parents are raising children to become good and well-adjusted adults every day. Even flawed men and women of the cloth do their best to help their fellow sinners find their way to God. None of them are hypocrites for helping others when they most certainly need help themselves. They all realize that God uses imperfect people to show His love and to accomplish His will. There are simply no other kinds of people available.
So don’t let your own shortcomings and weaknesses inhibit you from showing or proclaiming God’s love to your fellow human beings. Consider yourself as one beggar showing other beggars where to find food.
In the Scripture, not even the high priest was disqualified from serving God because of his own failures and shortcomings. It is written, “For every high priest taken from among men is appointed for men in things pertaining to God, that he may offer both gifts and sacrifices for sins. He can have compassion on those who are ignorant and going astray, since he himself is also subject to weakness. Because of this he is required as for the people, so also for himself, to offer sacrifices for sins,” (Hebrews 5:1-3, NKJV).
PRAYER:
Dear Father in heaven, I confess to you my own frailties, failures, and unworthiness to be called Your servant. Yet I praise You for loving and accepting me as I am. Please, dear Lord, even though I am broken, use me to show Your love and make me a blessing to others. Amen.
