Who’s Really Playing God?

Sometimes a doctor dares to tell a person

How long he or she will live,

Such predictions often amuse me

Since last I checked life was God’s to give.

More than such prognoses though

There is another matter we must contemplate,

This also has to do with doctors

And the god-like decisions they sometimes take.

For example take the following scenario

In which a doctor must make a decision

Whether to euthanize a dying patient

Or extend the life of a terminally ill person.

Such a question brings to the fore

Some very thought provoking considerations

Like whether life can still have meaning

In times of severe suffering or loss of vital functions.

Who among us including the doctor

Can determine when life no longer has meaning

Or whether a machine hooked up person

Has brain capacity to keep thought streaming?

And what about the will of God?

Shouldn’t this also be of critical thought?

Isn’t it God who gives life purpose and meaning?

Isn’t He the one through whom life is wrought?

Isn’t my life and yours a gift from God?

And as such should we not seek to preserve it?

Isn’t He sovereign over its beginning and its end?

And as such should we not cherish every little bit?

Is it not murder to actually take one’s life?

Therefore what about euthanasia or mercy killing?

Is it any different when a doctor does it

In particular to relieve a patient’s suffering?

Suffering which is a part of our natural life

Performs a vital developmental roll

Particularly in the life of a born again believer

Whom it helps to spiritually grow.

Is he not playing God when he determines

How much suffering is really too much?

And what about the Hippocratic oath he swore?

Isn’t he reneging on this when he takes a life as such?

Is he not also playing God when on the other hand

He dares to prolong the existence of a patient

Who is hooked up to numerous machines

And whose natural life is already spent?

No life activity other than the machines,

No brain activity, no semblance of thought,

Only the experimentation of doctors in charge

In their attempt to buy what cannot be bought.

Life is God’s to give and to take

Time here is not man’s to create or make,

Mercy killing is a God’s alone decision

Prolongation of death is not a God-given provision.

Consider the following gauge if you will

Of the difference between preserve and prolong:

To preserve natural life is certainly right

But to prolong death is absolutely wrong.

In the final analysis it would appear to me

That life must be permitted to run its course,

Actively speeding up death is wrong

And prolonging the same should not be enforced.

Rather than Play God we should let God be God,

Either of the two is encroaching on His domain,

In life-ending matters depend on God for wisdom

And consider what is meaningful while life remains.

Stewart Russell © 2016