Recently, I was whisked off to the manager’s office to sign the yearly evaluation. I work as an ER Technician in a small hospital. As we entered the office and closed the door my new coordinator let me know right up front, “I just want you to know I didn’t fill out this evaluation.”
He went on to say, “The new manager was the one to fill out the form. She didn’t know much about you so she asked the nurses.”
I then began looking over the 30 items on the list and how I was graded. Most of the items were marked ‘above average’. Some had me marked down as simply ‘average’. But there was one he pointed out that troubled me to no end.
I was graded down on ‘sense of urgency’. Now we’re talking about an ER situation here. This is no place to have a ‘below average’ in ‘sense of urgency’. I immediately appealed to my new coordinator but he informed me it wasn’t something he could change. Some of the nurses had evidently felt I lacked in that area and so that evaluation would stick. He did mention that in the short time we’d worked together he noticed I was a lot like him. We’re both calm in crisis. We don’t go through a meltdown in the middle of a code in the trauma room. We just calmly get our work done.
Spiritual Application
Finally, after fuming considerably, I gave my thoughts over to the Lord. He helped me to remember to do something I’ve done before when I just don’t understand something. I began trying to look for a spiritual lesson in this little incident. This led me to the last book in the Bible.
In the book of Revelation John records the urgency of Jesus towards all of us.
Jesus urges, “Look, I am coming soon!” (Can’t you just sense the urgency there?) “My reward is with me….” (Revelation 22:12).
To drive home the sense of urgency even further John records Jesus’ words at the end of chapter 22, “Surely I come quickly.”
With John, may we each arise to the sense of urgency by our words and actions and exclaim, “Come, Lord Jesus!” (Revelation 22:20).
When God looks at me does His penetrating perceptiveness see the sense of urgency exhibited within me? I may believe I have a sense of urgency, yet what are God’s thoughts on that? With His all seeing eye, how would he judge me? In His spiritual assessment of me would He state- “Lacks a sense of urgency?”
