We had an interesting visiting speaker this morning at church. He was a pastor from California and told us his “story within a story” His name is Mike Reed and the list of horrible medical issues he has had to face since childhood was beyond comprehension. As he told his story he made connections showing that in hindsight if this (negative thing) hadn’t happened, then this (good) thing wouldn’t have happened. He saw God at work throughout his life.

He was diagnosed with aplastic anemia at the age of ten and though not expected to live several times and enduring months of chemo-therapy and radiation he survived only to deal with other problems that occurred because of the chemo and radiation, like cateracts, infections, inability to sweat, or salivate. About the time he was diagnosed his Dad was furloughed from his job as a pilot and found another job. He got his job back as a pilot but kept the second job foreseeing medical expenses. Because of this he had two insurance policies. If it hadn’t been for those policies there was some treatment that Mike would not have received. His dad losing his job ended up being part of what saved Mike’s life. Later he had severe liver problems and needed a liver transplant. This was at the beginning of the use of live related donor treatments. A man who’s fiance wanted him to check out the church near where they would live came and met with Mike and though later found that he was actually at the wrong church, joined. Though he and his wife moved across the country shortly after that, he ended up being the liver donor. Mike’s life was saved again because the man came to the wrong church.

He said that we as church people, know scripture, claim to know the Lord and believe His word – but do we really? He had a slideshow playing in the background as he spoke and one slide said:

“Happiness – feeling. Root – happening, circumstance.

Joy – attitude: deep settled confidence that God is in control of every area of my life.

Joy is a choice – choose it!”

He said that in the midst of all this he realized that not one second would be snatched from his life that God did not allow. If we really believe God’s word then we should have joy. Romans 8:28 promises us that:

“And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.”

but it doesn’t promise that we will see it. Though Mike Reed was able to see the connections through hindsight – he was saying that we should live knowing those “connections” where God is at work in our lives are there even when we can’t see them.

Some quotes in the presentation that underscored what he was saying:

“If God can accomplish his purposes in this world through a broken heart, then why not thank him for breaking yours?”

Oswald Chambers

“I believe that pain and suffering can be a prison or a prism. The tests of life are not to break us but to make us.”

Unknown

There was a lot more to his story and more than he had time to share with us, and though many of these experiences were horrific, he was not a gloomy or pitiful person. He had humor and made jokes throughout his talk. He is now married and has two adopted daughters and is a pastor in Oceanside, California. There were some hints that he still had medical issues to deal with and I suspect he will have til God takes hime home, but it was obvious that he will be serving the Lord til that day.

I envy people with that kind of conviction – the “cracked pots” that God uses; and yet I hesitate to pray for it for myself. I may be a cracked pot too but I’m not sure I would have the strength to go through so much and still be able to maintain an attitude of joyful service. I don’t even do well waking up early.

Psalm 51:8

Let me hear joy and gladness; let the bones you have crushed rejoice.

I used to wonder at the purpose for all the dietary laws that the Jewish people of the Old Testament had to observe. Then I heard a pastor talk about how much easier it is to make friends and exchange viewpoints when you have the type of relationship with people that allows you to sit and eat a meal with them. The Lord knew how easily we would make spiritual accommodations with people they made friends with and in Old Testament times sharing a meal was more of a covenant experience than it is now. When you had a guest you were responsible for him while he was in your home. It indicated a certain level of trust. Once you have established a relationship with another person you are at the least more willing to listen to their point of view. God wanted his kids to be separate to keep their spiritual beliefs intact.

Once you listen to another person’s point of view it is not that big a step to have that point of view change your own in some minute way. This is not a bad thing in most cases but I think where our faith is concerned it is tragic and down through the generations those little increments add up.

Now here we are in a society that throws children away for the sake of convenience and material things, accepts a culture that is polluted with pornography on every level and we find ways to evade accountability. We stay busy and we “see” but don’t “discern”. One definition I found for discern was “recognize: detect with the senses”. We need to be using more that our eyes to take a quick glance around these days. We need to be using all our senses to recognize that we no longer have a common accepted “yardstick” by which to measure right and wrong or true and false. We have let every idea people can express be made acceptable in the name of tolerance. The worst of it is that these things affect each successive generation more deeply so the legacy that we leave our children is a bigger mess that the one we started with.

I recently took my computer to a friend for repair. He told me that there was way too much stuff on it and the best thing to do at this point was to back things up and do a clean install. Too bad we can’t do that with life. I think we have let in too much stuff (junk) and we can no longer sort through and recognize (discern) what we should keep and what we should toss. We need a clean install.

Some years ago I read a book co-authored by Chuck Colson and Jack Eckerd titled, “Why America Doesn’t Work.” Here is the opening quote from the book:

“Perched on the brink of the twenty-first century, we look out across a land where our families are disintegrating, our streets have become drug- war zones, our classrooms are turning out thousands of functionally illiterate and morally bereft young people, our economy looks like it’s on a roller-coaster, our government deliberately keeps millions idle, and our work force produces second-rate products while demanding first-rate benefits.

I was, at the time a mother of two toddlers and trying to look ahead to raise them with the tools they would need to be thinking, feeling, compassionate people; capable of making their own decisions in a world that tries to sway us every which way and this book caught my attention.

One of the stories was about a Nazi camp where the Jewish prisoners were ordered to move a huge pile of rocks from one end of the yard to the other. Even though these people were starving and in desperate circumstances they encouraged each other and accomplished the task. When the task was complete they were ordered to move them back. At this stage they stopped encouraging each other, stopped trying and some quit eating or threw themselves at the fence basically committing suicide. The difference? The second move they knew this was a meaningless task. The authors contend that people need meaningful work to survive. Without meaningful work, we as humans have no sense of accomplishment and we, like the Jews in that Nazi camp can sink into despair. I searched for the root meaning of the word despair and found this: from Latin desperare (de- `without’ + sperare `to hope’ People with no hope have nothing to lose or gain. They care about nothing and no one. They have no purpose.

The way I see it, the only way to motivate people with no hope is to give them hope. That gives us several tasks. How do we give them hope? What do we give them hope for? How will they continue to be people of hope?

We had better figure out those answers soon if we are to survive as a culture. We need a clean install.