On the 5th Anniversary

This weekend marks the 5th anniversary of Micah’s death and Homegoing to Heaven. While Heather and I are very busy between three living children, a busy law practice, and managing the Hope for the Mourning ministry, we continue to grieve Micah’s passing. On previous anniversaries of Micah’s death, I have put together poems and/or videos of Micah’s life, of our favorite memories, and his impact on us. These are all good and right ways to grieve his passing. We miss him beyond words. Heather has always said that “missing him” never quite captures the extent of loss. We would love to see him playing with his younger siblings, learning to read, and heading off to school. Would he look more like me or like Heather? Would he be a bookworm, like his brother Owen, a good golfer, like his brother Brendan, or have a non-stop motor, like his sister Kinsley? How would his presence impact others? We would gladly give all we have just to see him, as he is now, in Glory with our Lord. But I have become convinced that the main enduring legacy of Micah’s premature death is the need for us to be utterly dependent upon God and to pursue God beyond any other endeavor. In other words, we honor Micah most be ordering our love for Jesus, and our trust in His plan for our lives, ahead of our love for our oldest son. This past week, I spoke with a recently-bereaved mother, whom I met through the Hope for the Mourning website, about the premature death of her own son. We agreed that it is so very difficult to know how to learn to pray to God again after experiencing the “shell shock” of a huge unanswered prayer. In other words, why (and how) should we pray to a God who would not keep our children alive, despite our earnest prayers to that end? As we discussed, however, just because we don’t know why the Lord would chose to not answer that prayer does not mean that he doesn’t have a reason for the unanswered prayer. In order to pursue and hold fast to this line of hope, to believe it in your heart and not just your head, to trust in something that has no earthly evidence, we must take upon ourselves the daily discipline of placing one’s trust in Jesus for the granting of additional faith. Indeed, in order to endure all circumstances in life, we must rest completely on the goodness and mercy of God in providing us the faith necessary to trust in Him. Ironically, in order for fulfill Micah’s legacy, our lives must be less about Micah, and more about Jesus. I pray that my life would demonstrate that, and that other fellow grieving parents would take on themselves the cost of discipleship in following Christ.

Improper Concepts of Purpose

As I read through the crucifixion account again this past Easter week, I was struck by an aspect that I had not really previously paid much attention to. I was struck by how little Jesus' disciples understood the meaning of the cross, and, in light of that lack of understanding, their own level of agony as they seemed to grieve not only the sufferings of their teacher, but (seemingly) the also the death of their dreams. As they watched Jesus suffer and die, they had to grieve the loss of who they thought Jesus was and what he would do for them and for Israel. Of course, in hindsight, we can see how the disciples plainly missed so much of Jesus' teaching and prophesy about the purpose of His life, and the meaning of the cross. As a result of "missing" this teaching, the disciples were grieving. If they had understood Jesus teaching, and expected it, then they would have reacted much differently than how we see they reacted in the gospel accounts. Similar to Jesus's disciples, I wonder how much of my own life I "miss" when it comes to the proper understanding of the meaning of our sufferings. Certainly, we will never understand (at least not on this side of eternity), the meaning of all of our sufferings. But can we not just admit that we don't know all the purposes, and rather than assuming certain sufferings are "waste," live in the hope that no suffering is wasted for those who "are called according to His purpose?"

Humility in Judging God

In his fantastic new book, Walking with God through Pain and Suffering, Pastor Timothy Keller describes the shortcomings of the human mind to fully understand God's purposes, generally, and with regard to specific instances of suffering. He relays what scientists have commonly referred to as "the Butterfly Effect," which is the idea that a butterfly's path in one area of the world would ultimate impact weather patterns, which ultimately have a global impact. Similarly, the seemingly simple exercise of a ball rolling down a hill carries with it thousands of mathematical calculations as to the likelihood of where it will ultimately land. Given all of these complexities, how can we, mere human being, expect to understand all of God's ways? Keller writes, "Now, if even the effects of a butterfly's flight or the roll of a ball down a hill are too complex to calculate, how much less could any human being look at the tragic, seemingly "senseless" death of a young person and have any idea of what the effects in history will be? If an all-powerful and all-wise God were directing all of history with its infinite number of interactive events toward good ends, it would be folly to think we could look at any particular occurrence and understand a millionth of what it will bring about. The history-butterfly effect means that "only an omniscient mind could grasp the complexities of directing a world of free creatures toward..previsioned good goals...certainly many evils seem pointless and unnecessary to us--but we are simply not in a position to judge." Keller, page 101, quoting J.P. Moreland and W.L Craig. While I'd love to know what God has done through our son's death, I am beginning to realize just how daunting a task it is. We realize how much broader, and more infinite, are the branches of human relationships and interactions, and that God is omnipresent in all of them, working them for His ultimate glory.

A Grieving Parent's Obedience

In Matthew 16, Jesus rebukes Peter for trying to suggest that Jesus should pursue anything other than to fulfill the Father’s calling for his life—a sacrificial death on the cross. Rather than calling us to a lap of luxury, Jesus tells Peter and those of us who have been called as His followers to “deny himself, take up his cross and follow me.” (Matthew 16:24). About this death, Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote, “When Christ calls a man, he bids him to come and die.” In becoming His disciples, we are called to suffer for Him. The “deaths” we must die are different for every believer. Those of us who are grieving the death of one of our children have a difficult cross to bear. As demonstrated in numerous instances throughout the gospels, Christ holds the power of life, death and even resurrection. Since we lost a child, we have had to come to grips with the fact that, while Jesus held the power to save our child at the very moment of our child’s death, he chose not to heal our child. Unlike many grieving parents who grieve the fact that God wasn’t strong enough to save their children, we trust that our child died not because God could not save the child, but because our child’s physical death is a means (albeit a nasty, heinous, terrible one) allowed in order to achieve much greater purposes. In trusting in this greater good, we have to pick up our cross, daily, by casting aside our own dreams for ourselves and our children, and instead obeying God’s promises that His purposes for our lives and our child’s (shortened) life will, in full view of eternity, far exceed our own expectations. Will you pick up your cross and carry it with me on your own road to Golgatha, regardless of where it might light, in the sure hope and certainty that it will be worth the cost, in the ultimate end?

Daily Disciplines and Eternal Consequences

In his short fantasy novel, “The Great Divorce” C.S. Lewis follows a man who is given the opportunity to travel to a fictitious “Heaven.” This “Heaven” includes both the saved (the “Solid People”) as well as the unsaved (“Ghosts,” who are residents of “the town” or Hell). In this fictional novel, even who are not saved are given the opportunity to visit this Heaven. Lewis, of course, tells his readers not to think that this conception of Heaven is in any way theologically-sound. The novel does provide us, however, with a great glimpse into a very basic (but often overlooked) aspect of our Christian lives-that is, how seemingly small decisions made every day will ultimately impact who we become, not only in this life but in eternity. In other words, every day decisions will ultimately impact our desires, our personality, and who it is that we become, in Christ. During one interaction between the main character and a member of the Solid People, we are told, “Not only this valley but all their earthly past will have been Heaven to those who are saved. Not only the twilight in that town, but all their life on Earth too, will then be seen by the damned to have been Hell. That is what mortals misunderstand. They say of some temporal suffering ,”No future bliss can make up for it,” not knowing that Heaven, once attained, will work backwards and turn even that agony into a glory. And of some sinful pleasure they say, “Let me have but this and I’ll take the consequences”: little dreaming how damnation will spread back and back into their past and contaminate the pleasure of the sin. Both processes begin even before death. The good man’s past begins to change so that his forgiven sins and remembered sorrows take on the qualify of Heaven; the bad man’s past already conforms to his badness and is filled only with dreariness.” C.S. Lewis, Great Divorce, Page 69. As we grieve the death of our child, will we renew ourselves, day after day, in the promises of Hope found in scripture so that, by reason of years of practice, it becomes second nature to us? Are we taking the necessary (seemingly insignificant) mundane steps to steep ourselves in the encouragement of fellow believers? As Lewis notes, the consequences of these daily decisions have eternal consequences.

Making My Son's Death My Own

The farther away in time we get from Micah’s death, the easier it is to become re-absorbed into the world. How much easier it is now, more than 4 years since Micah’s death, to grow comfortable again, to regain personal, professional and family ambitions. We have enjoyed the opportunity to be parents to our three living kids, and all the activities that come with parenting. From an outside perspective, one might say we have a “life” again. But while the world, and well-meaning friends, may applaud us for this re-engagement, a complete re-engagement would mean the loss of one of the great legacies to us of Micah’s death. For in the emotional and spiritual upheaval created in my heart following Micah’s death, I experienced not a physical death, but a death to my own ambitions, dreams and hopes. Since Micah was (and even now is) an integral part of the hopes for my life, in Micah’s physical death I experienced a death in my life’s ambitions. In those weeks and months following Micah’s death, we gained an eternal perspective on our lives and Micah’s short life, a perspective that put all of those ambitions, worldly cares and worldly concerns that I now spend some much time upon in their proper place—buried six feet under along with my oldest son’s remains. I think this type of death, this loss of self-absorption and personal ambition, is precisely what Christ calls us to, as His disciples. Jesus calls us to death—not merely physical, but to our own comforts and ambitions. “Truly, Truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.” John 12:24. About this verse, the Wycliffe Bible Commentary says, “Death is the key to spiritual fruitfulness.” In death, we have no choice but to follow after Christ, to trust in Him, and find His strength sufficient for us. Jesus says that “Whoever loves his life loses it, and whoever hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life.” John 12:25. Will you join me in attempting to lose my own ambitions, in the hopes of gaining real and true life, in Christ?

Micah at 5 Years Old

Today marks our son Micah's 5th birthday. As in each of the past few years, we will mark his birthday later today by birthday cupcakes eaten by our living children, and after a birthday song, birthday candles blown out by Micah's exuberant (although somewhat confused) younger siblings. It's also typically marked by a visit to the grave and by a few tears. With each passing year, we've grown increasingly certain that while God has already used Micah's life and death to accomplish some good and noble purposes, we can't hope to possibly understand all those purposes on this side of eternity. As with most grieving parents, we yearn to know what those purposes are; to be able to offset the pain and anguish we have experienced by reason of his shortened life and death with tangible and noteworthy eternal purposes. We have already greatly benefitted from the knowledge of certain blessings that have arisen by reason of Micah's death. But we groan to know more. We groan to know what blessings have come to us and others by reason of these present sufferings. In one of the passages that Heather and I most frequently recite to one another in encouragement, Paul tells us, "For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us. For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God....And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. For in this hope we were saved..." Romans 8:18, 19, 23. Tonight, if you were in our home here in Minnetonka, you would hear the sound of children celebrating a birthday. But the overriding theme here is not one of celebration, as is the case with our other birthdays, but one of groaning. Just as in Paul's letter to the Romans, we have a heartfelt desire for what is ahead. For every human suffering through this present age, Christ is our only hope. For at that great day of Reunion, when Christ meets us face to face, we will have our greatest appetites for glory met in God, our thirst for significance in suffering fully satisfied in our Savior. We will see how all our sufferings, both large and small, were worked out in these past few temporal earthly days, and that our son Micah's short life on earth accomplished more than we can ever currently possibly conceive.