Category: Life

The Storm Rages On

I knew the look in her face. I had seen it many times in the eyes of the caretakers of my hospice patients. Exhaustion.

When Mom gets sick, you take off time from work to take her to the doctor. There are the tests, the follow-up visits, the referrals to specialists, a new round of appointments and tests, and a new round of follow-up visits before a treatment plan is established.

Then, there’s the treatment process. The trips to Dallas or Houston, the recovery time from the treatments, and then the follow-up visits with the specialist to see whether the body responded to the treatments.

From there, Mom may have gotten better, or she may have gotten worse.

If she’s gotten better, there is a season when things go back to normal, until the disease flares up again. Then, this whole process starts over.

It becomes a vicious cycle. Mom gets sick, treatments, Mom gets better, but not quite as strong as before.

At some point, Mom loses her independence. The daughter may move Mom in with her, or the daughter may place Mom in assisted living or in a nursing home. Either way, she is caring for Mom daily and spending a lot of time with her at the expense of her family, her career, and her own self-care.

Then, the doctors finally tell her, “There’s nothing more we can do. We can’t beat this disease, we can only manage its symptoms moving forward.” As a hospice chaplain, that’s usually when my organization was engaged, and when I got to meet the family.

Each story is as unique and precious as it is common. The people, places, diagnoses and struggles are different, but the story arc is the same.

Daughter is tired.

Often, the family has been devout in their faith, and they turned to the Lord and the church for help. They prayed constantly, yet things didn’t get better.

Photo by Kampus Production on Pexels.com

As the Bellamy Brothers famously sang, “And behind each wave of tragedy, they waited for the joy.”

But the joy never came.

“Weeping may endure for a night, but joy comes in the morning.” Yet, the morning hasn’t come, and we’re not even seeing the first light.

I don’t believe in the “too blessed to be stressed” Christianity. My faith cannot fit on a bumper sticker, and it won’t sell many t-shirts. I’ve seen the real world.

The real world is brutal, heart-breaking, devastating, and at times, merciless.

But God is good! All the time! And the heartbreak He allows to touch our lives serves His purpose, and serves our good. It’s just hard to see through the tears, sometimes.

In Psalm 13, King David asked, “How long wilt thou forget me, O Lord? for ever? how long wilt thou hide thy face from me? ²How long shall I take counsel in my soul, having sorrow in my heart daily? how long shall mine enemy be exalted over me?”

You get the idea from these verses that King David, too, experienced times when the world was overwhelming, and he was unsure of how he could survive. King David also prayed, consistently, over long periods of time, only to hear no answer back from the Lord.

Just as our storm often continues to rage, King David also saw his storms rage violently and bitterly over long periods of time. There were times when, like us, King David felt as if God were hiding His face from him.

This is when you find out what you truly believe.

This is when you find out if your religion were a cultural exercise, the right thing to say, or whether it was something you truly believed to the point that it shaped your core.

For King David, his faith shaped his core, because even in these desperate situations, David continued to express his unmovable faith toward God.

He went on to say in Psalm 13:3, “Consider and hear me, O Lord my God: lighten mine eyes, lest I sleep the sleep of death;”

Even though it appeared as if his prayers were going unanswered, David continued to pray to the Lord, pleading with him to “consider” him, meaning to observe him, be attentive to him, and see his plight. David asked God to hear him, to hear his prayer, his words, his heart and his pain.

David went on to express his faith once again.

“But I have trusted in thy mercy; my heart shall rejoice in thy salvation. ⁶I will sing unto the Lord, because he hath dealt bountifully with me. (Psalm 13:5-6)”

David trusts in God’s mercy because mercy is at the heart of who God is, and being confident, David knows that the salvation is coming, and will rejoice in that salvation.

Despite the storms of his present time David remembered how God had been good to him before, and he understood that all of life, the good and the bad, are amazing gifts from God.

Therefore, even in the midst of his suffering, David not only trusted God for deliverance, but praised God for His goodness.

And when we reach that level of Spiritual maturity, we are truly becoming the person God intended on us being.

For my hospice patients and families, this meant accepting the fact that the patient’s time on this earth was coming to a close, and that the family’s time with that patient was fleeting.

My job as chaplain was to help them manage the grief of that reality, regain their hope and trust in the Lord, approach that day with hope and purpose, and be at peace when the time came.

That job was accomplished by opening God’s word and demonstrating to them God’s goodness and love even in the midst of this trying time.

Are you in that place right now? If not hospice, maybe financial? Or is there a family situation?

And you’ve prayed over that situation, but the storm continues to rage?

Don’t give up. Remember how good God is. Keep praying, because the morning comes, and with it, the joy of the Spiritual victory God will give.

Your Life is a Gift

With Jesus having taken His ministry public, the crowds began to follow Him, leaving the ministry of John the Baptist to drift into obsolescence. When the Pharisees questioned John about the fact that Jesus and His disciples were baptizing more people, John set the record straight.

In a passage that includes notable scriptures like “He must increase, but I must decrease,” John explained that His ministry was fulfilled as people followed Christ. Christ was the groom, John was the best man. John had an honored position, but it was really all about Christ the entire time.

John’s initial response, “A man can receive nothing, except it be given him from heaven,” is actually quite profound. In that response, John not only glorified God, but gave the Lord the glory for his own life and being.

Think about it. It was God who created John. It was God who chose his parents, the time in which he was born, placed the calling upon his life, and brought the people to him to be baptized. The only reason John had a ministry at all was because God gave it to him. And God was the one who made John’s ministry both pivotal and historic.

It works the same for everyone. Pilate told Jesus during his trial that he had the power to put the Lord to death. Jesus replied, “You would have no power over me except it were given to you from above.”

Again, it was God who created Pilate, chose the time period in which he lived, the location in which he grew up, placed him on a track that landed him in the governor’s chair in Judea, and placed him in front of Christ on trial day.

And yet, His order to allow the crucifixion of Christ was still an act of rebellion against God, despite the fact it was foreknown and planned for.

Mordecai told Esther, “Who knows if you are come to the kingdom for such a time as this.” Esther’s ascent to being queen was highly unlikely and a statistical anomaly. Yet, there she was, queen, who was in a unique position to save her people from persecution. God set it up and ordained it.

It works the same for us. God created us, placed us in this time and community, chose our parents, gifted our skillsets, and placed us in this unique position to honor and glorify Him.

Look around, and realize everything you see is a gift from God.

Now, how are you using that gift?

When the Crowds Leave

Let’s face it. When it comes to church, we often feel validated by how well our services are attended. If attendance is increasing, we must be doing something right.

Conversely, if attendance is dwindling, we must be doing something wrong.

However, neither attitude is correct. Often, doing the right thing means fewer people are willing to walk with you, which means attendance will be lower.

Jesus saw this in John 6, when He told the multitudes that He would not be feeding them miraculously every day, and that they must fully trust in Him to enter the Kingdom. Scripture says the multitude departed and would not walk with him anymore.

John the Baptist saw this in John 3, when Jesus launched His earthly ministry, and people began following Jesus rather than John.

The idea of being validated by attendance, and by how many people walked with you is not new. The Pharisees often validated themselves and respected each other based on how many disciples each one had.

So, when the Pharisees observed John’s following dissipating while the Lord’s following skyrocketed, they asked him about it. John’s response?

“He must increase, but I must decrease.”

John’s confession was not one of resignation or defeat, but rather of victory.

The entire ministry of John the Baptist centered on the idea of preparing the people to meet Christ. Once Christ arrived, it only made sense for the people to follow the Lord instead of the prophet that heralded the Lord.

So, when John said, “He must increase, but I must decrease,” in essence, he was saying, “mission accomplished.” He then compared his feelings to that of a best man at a wedding, who rejoiced to see the groom with his bride.

One major struggle of the Christian life is the ongoing battle with the temptation to make everything about us. We want the Lord to validate us in this life, to show us victory in this life, and to bless our dreams and ambitions in this life.

In reality, this life is about glorifying the Lord and leading people to salvation. In order to do that, we have to make our lives about the Lord, not about ourselves. The struggle is that this goes against the natural impulses of the flesh, which seeks to glorify itself.

If you live in the South Plains of Texas, join us Sunday morning at First Baptist Church in Hermleigh, TX, as we explore this concept further, in a message I’ve entitled, “The Shrinking Baptist.” Sunday worship is at 10:50 a.m., with Sunday School beforehand at 10 a.m.

If you are not located near Hermleigh, the message will be posted on this blog the following day. May God continue to bless you as you look to Him.

Born Again!

The Pharisees were certain that when the Christ came, He would congratulate them on their piety and would validate their traditions and practices. However, when Jesus came, He dined with sinners and publicans, and disrupted their operations in the Temple court.

To Nicodemus, it was obvious that Jesus came from God, and was likely the Christ. But, His actions contradicted Nicodemus’ preconceived notions. So, instead of rejecting or opposing Christ like many of the other Pharisees, Nicodemus went to Jesus for answers.

And He got them.

When Nicodemus began the conversation with Jesus, the Lord told Him, “Except you be born again, you cannot see the Kingdom of God.”

The reason for the confusion was that Nicodemus was not born again. He hadn’t been redeemed, saved. His faith wasn’t quite there.

The idea of being born again was a new concept to Nicodemus, who asked what and how the new birth worked. In the conversation that followed, Jesus demonstrated how those who are born again, those who are in the faith, can see the Kingdom move, and will be welcomed into the Kingdom when it comes to earth.

He then taught Nicodemus how to be born again. In essence, Jesus told Nicodemus to look to Him for redemption the same way the Israelites looked to the brazen serpent to be healed of snakebites in the book of Numbers.

Throughout this conversation, we see the need to be born again, what it’s like being born again, and how to be born again. Click the video above for the full message.