Room 314: God's Presence

In Psalm 139, David writes about how God is everywhere present. He writes, "Where shall I go from your Spirit? Or where shall I flee from your presence? If I ascend to heaven, you are there! If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there! If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there your hand shall lead me, and your right hand shall hold me." Psalm 139:7-10. While we can objectively know that God is always present, do we always subjectively feel His presence? My experience in Room 314, during my recent lengthy and unexpected hospital stay, shows how counter-intuitive and yet wonderful and re-assuring is a sense of God's presence. Throughout the evening of Sunday night, the 11th of January, and the early morning hours of the next day, I was in tremendous pain from the effects of the bacterial infection in my body. Even though I suffered from hallucinations and high fevers that prevented clear thought, I will never forget the distinct comfort of the sense of the presence of our Lord. I had the distinct emotional and spiritual sense that God was in this circumstance. In times such as this, when we have no earthly hopes, what a tremendous benefit it is to have a sense of the Lord's presence--knowing that whether we live or die, whether we succeed in our earthly endeavors, whatever happens--the Lord is truly with us and on our side. From my experience, it seems there are two qualifications to receiving that sense of His presence. First, we must be so humbled by our God-ordained circumstances that we are not then in a position to rely upon ourselves. We cannot be of a mindset where we think we can manage our circumstances on our own. In my case, I had become absolutely impotent to control everything in my life that, as of a few days previously, I thought I had well under my control: my family, my finances, my career, my physical condition. By reason of what the Lord stripped of me, I could not rely upon myself, and in my humility, God granted a sense of His presence. Second, we must ask for that sense of God's presence through prayer. My grandfather would pray daily that we would "have a sense of the Lord's presence as we walk and talk with Him." In my condition in Room 314, I was not in a position to offer up intelligent prayers. And yet God does not require intelligent, well-written or reasoned prayers--he only requires a heart seeking Him. Tim Keller writes, "Through prayer our somewhat abstract knowledge of God becomes existentially real to us. We do not just believe in the glory of God; we sense His greatness. We do not just believe that he loves us; we find our hearts flooded with it." I pray that my own experience in Room 314 will teach me to use strip myself of self-sufficiency and daily pray for a sense of the Lord's presence, that we might be encouraged to live in awe and wonder at His glorious attributes and what He is doing in us.

Room 314: God's Ownership

When we lost our son Micah, Heather and I struggled with the very same question that we know is asked by so many fellow grieving parents--how can God take away "our" child? How could God dare to take him or her away from us, the child's very parents? Though not without a fight, God has shown us that, while we can not and should not end our grief over our son, we did not actually possess ownership rights over our son's life. While we can and should go to God with our grief and our questions, we cannot claim ownership over our child. Our son's life is actually owned by Jesus, the creator and sustainer of all. In the book of Colossians, the Apostle Paul writes about Christ's claim to everything in all creation, including our very lives. "For by him [Jesus] all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities--all things were created through him and for him. And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together." (Colossians 1:16). My experience in Room 314 of the hospital has reinforced what I learned following the sudden death of my son--that as much effort as I put into my career, raising a family, pushing myself to career success or athletic achievement--I really don't possess any of it. Since God created each of us, and sustains every aspect of who we are, we cannot claim ownership over any of it. The day before I entered the hospital, I ran 9 miles on the treadmill at a fairly good pace. I took some pride in my long-distance running ability. But in the course of 22 days in the hospital, 8 days of which were without any food, the shape of my body has completely changed. In the course of this short time, God chose not to sustain that physical ability. While I am grateful that the Lord "held together" my body through some difficult medical concerns, he has chosen to not sustain ("hold together") the physical running ability that I had before entering the hospital. Similarly, I work very diligently to manage relationships within my law practice, keeping a very full schedule of meetings. But given my time away from work, I have had to delegate the responsibilities of work to others. While I am grateful for my colleagues and my clients, my experience has shown me that I clearly don't "own" my law practice. I cannot control my schedule, my relationships. I cannot "hold it all together" in my own efforts--but Jesus clearly can, if He so desires. Just as God sustains my physical body, God sustains even our professional and financial relationships. He owns it all. Through this experience, I have been blessed with the lesson that as much as I strive to succeed in my "own" efforts, God is the sustainer of these efforts, and He will sustain what He will. As we struggle with grief or other suffering, we must recognize the limitations of our own striving, and look to Jesus as the owner of every aspect of our lives.

Room 314: It is Finished!

Friends, I recently returned home from a very lengthy and unexpected hospital stay. After anticipating a 3 or 4 day hospital stay for a relatively standard medical procedure, I developed complications from the procedure, and I ended up spending 22 of 26 days in the hospital. While these complications from the procedure have had profound effects on my physical body (including the loss of a lot of weight, strength, and lung capacity), I do anticipate, Lord willing, to make a full recovery. The complications and the hospital stay itself have had a profound effect on my spiritual and emotional condition. Not since Micah died have I truly felt as powerless and humbled. Not since Micah died have I felt the Lord's presence so strong upon me. Through the many long days and nights of laying in Room 314 at the hospital, I felt his presence upon me, even as I was too weak from the pain and drugs to do anything other than think and wait upon the Lord. I'd like to renew my blogging efforts, so that I can, for my own benefit, work through the purposes that God may have been accomplishing through my recent health issues. While the world might simply say, "What are the chances!!--You are very unlucky," we as believers know that God never wastes our sufferings, and that no suffering, in whatever form, cannot be ultimately redeemed for His sovereign and good purposes. Of the several implications I'd live to write about, perhaps the most significant encouragement to me is how I view God's finished work for the redemption of my own soul. Paul says in Colossians 1:18b-19, "...He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent. For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven making peace by the blood of his cross." At the cross, by reason of Christ's blood on the cross, we have been FULLY reconciled to God. When one is laying on the hospital bed, there can be no greater assurance that one's life has already been reconciled to God. We need not lay on our death beds regretting what we didn't accomplish for God during our lifetime, since God has already done it for us. As I lay in Room 314 through those long days, I was so grateful for that promise, for it kept me from innumerable regrets of what ministry objectives I didn't accomplish, what I failed to do with my wife and kids, or even unmet career objectives. Perhaps one of God's purposes in this significant health episode has been to teach me to remove a "salvation by my own works" thought process, and rely completely on Christ's work on the cross for my own redemption. Having been in Room 314 for as long as I was, let me encourage you to be so grateful for the fact that, if you are in Christ, your salvation is already accomplished!

Remembering Micah on his 6th Birthday

Yesterday we held our annual chili lunch with friend and family in honor of Micah’s upcoming 6th birthday. We continue to be so grateful for friends and family who support us in our grief, as well as the Hope for the Mourning ministry. Every day, and particularly on special occassions such as Micah's birthday, we remember Micah for our benefit and the benefit of our living children who did not know Micah during his earthly lifetime. In remembering him, it is not as though we are “fighting” against God and trying to overcome God's plan. It is not as if God’s plan was to take Micah and undo some mistake or that (even worse) God couldn't control the pea that ultimately took his little life. God very much planned his life and his death. God’s plan was, and always has been, that he should live just 9 months, and then have his death impact us in numerous ways, some of which I anticipate will be revealed to us only many years from now. We therefore honor Micah, and God’s plan for Micah, in remembering Micah and in looking to the Lord for the purposes He seeks to accomplish through Micah's friends and family. For my part, while I have not forgotten Micah, I seemed to have forgotten some of the lessons that God taught us in the "early days" of our grief--in those first weeks and months following Micah’s death when all we could do was get out of bed and try to stay upright without falling over from the weakness induced by deep grief. For my part, I have lost that sense of dependency on us that is so crucial to walking, day by day, with our Lord. As we mark Micah's 6th birthday, I would like to honor him by remembering what God did through him initially, which was to induce a sense of utter dependendy upon God. Miicah’s story is essentially God’s story—they are one in the same. Since God took Micah, and as His creator He had the right to do so, we must look to the Lord and follow Him for what He sought to accomplish. While we are more than 5 years out now from his passing, we certainly don’t know many of the reasons, but I think we honor Micah, and his story, to the extent that our family remembers how God was sufficient in our times of our deepest sorrow and helplessness, and apply that sufficiency in our lives again today.

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.