February 2010 Prayer Letter

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A Series of Goodbyes, Part 1 - The Missed Opportunity

A good person died just a couple months ago - Christmas eve, actually.  I could have written this then, but the at the time I didn't know what to say.  Little would I know that this would be the first in a series of goodbyes that have affected me more than I realized they ever would.

David Myers was home from school to celebrate Christmas with his family.  It was early in the morning, around 2, and the wet weather and freezing temperatures had made the roads slick.  I don't know many of the details, but I do know that he was in his own neighborhood when his car left the road and struck a tree. He was wearing his seatbelt, but the impact was too much and he died.  He was 21.

When I found out, I didn't know how to react.  I didn't know David that well, but I had gotten to know him over the course of a few months when I was helping him get back into diving after he had taken some time off due to some serious injuries.  The fall of his senior year of high school I coached him off and on for a month or two, encouraging him to stick with it and make the most of his senior year.  He had so much talent, but had severely injured his back, making diving painful for him.  Yet he loved what he did, so he fought through it.

At the time I worked with him David was already taking college level science courses, as he was preparing to go to college to study Pre-Med, I assume to someday be a doctor.  I had heard that he did at one point have a wilder side to him, but he had calmed down and was beginning to take life more seriously.  I didn't pry into his business, but rather tried to remain a positive example for him as I encouraged him to improve as an athlete.  In all this, however, I never sought the opportunity to share my faith with him.  He and the rest of his family were aware of my goal of getting into the mission field, and, being Catholic, they understood.  Yet I never talked with David about his faith, about what he believed.

I missed the opportunity to share with him what really matters.  And now I will never have that chance.

For several weeks I beat myself up about this as I continued to wrap my head around the fact that he was gone.  I pray that he heard the Gospel from somebody else, as he had not heard it from me.  In this grief, however, I am reminded of the urgency to share the Good News of Christ with anybody and everybody I can, for we never know when it may be over.

So goodbye, David.  I'm sorry I let you down.  I pray that lives may be changed forever by your life and death, and by the revived sense of urgency for sharing the Gospel that I now have.  You were a good person, David, and there were many who cared about you, including some of us who never told you, and it was only in your death that we realized we missed that chance.

Happy (belated!) New Year!

Um, it's 2010?  When did that happen?

New Year's Resolutions...

1)  Get to Zambia this year.  That's a big one.
2)  Update the blog more than once per month.  Not as big as number 1, but still, kinda important.
3)  Update the website so that it's not quite so, um, blah.  Or at least convince people that it's not blah as it is.
4)  Stop making lists.  They get depressing when I don't get things done.

Hopefully this week I'll be able to make good on at least number 2, if not 2 and 3.

Complacency

We've all experienced it. We all become quite comfortable with it. Things are going okay. Life is "working." We're "getting by." But is there danger in becoming too comfortable? With being so okay with where we are and what we know that we cease to strive for something greater? What if we're hanging onto what is good - or even what isn't so good but it's what we know - because of the fear of what we will have to endure in order to reach what's better?

I've been reading "A Passion for the Impossible," a fantastic biography on Lilias Trotter, a single missionary to Algeria in the late 1800s/early 1900s. The following is an excerpt from her journal:

The martens have been reading me a faith lesson... one slept in my room last night and another darted in at the open window before I was up, swept round and out again.

Their faith lesson is this - that their wings need the sense of "an empty void" below to give them a start - their leg muscles have no spring in them and when they perch by accident on a level place they are stuck fast - poor things we did not know that natural history fact in the past and when we have found them on our flat Alger roof with its parapet protection, we have thought they had got hurt somehow, and more than once we have tried to feed them till they died, instead of doing the one thing that they needed - tossing them off into emptiness.

So we need not wonder if we are not allowed to stay longer in level sheltered places - our faith wings are like the martens and mostly need the gulf of some emergency to give them their start on a new flight. We will not fear when we feel empty air under them.

Because God knows we are fearful and weak, He sometimes provides whatever is necessary to take us out of our comfortable complacency, put us on our knees, in His arms, and fully dependent on Him. Only then is He able to accomplish through us that which we could never do on our own.

"For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do." - (Ephesians 2:10)

It may be frightening to step out of that comfort zone now, to adjust our lives to grow closer to God or to make an all out "leap of faith," but just as the marten has a confident hope in the ability to take flight after a leap into an unknown void, "we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Sprit, whom he has given us." (Romans 5:3-5)

Mary, Did You Know?

I don't know about you, but one of my favorite Christmas songs is "Mary, Did You Know?" If you're not familiar with it, here is the first verse:

"Mary did you know, that your baby boy, will one day walk on water?
Mary did you know, that your baby boy, will save our sons and daughters?
Did you know, that your baby boy has come to make you new?
This child that you delivered, will soon deliver you."

The song goes on to tell of more of the amazing things that Jesus did, ending with the line, "this sleeping child you're holding, is the great, I AM."

What the song does not ask, is "Mary, did you know, your baby boy would have to suffer death on a cross in order to save the sons and daughters?" It doesn't tell of the pain and persecution he endured - it doesn't ask if she knew of the lashings He would receive or the nails in His hands. How would she have acted if she had known? Would she have begged Him to reconsider following God's plan for His life so she wouldn't have to lose her baby boy for the salvation of the world?

We don't know the conversations Jesus had with His earthly parents regarding God's purspose for Him. Did they plead with him, suggesting He spend His life as a carpenter or perhaps a priest? When Joseph and Mary took 12-year-old Jesus to Jerusalem and Jesus lingered behind, their parental concern was evident:

"His Mother said to Him, 'Son, why have You treated us like this? Your father and I have been anxiously searching for you.'" His response: "'Why were you searching for me?' He asked. 'Didn't you know that I had to be in My Father's house?' But they did not understand what He was saying to them." (Luke 2:48-50)

How did they react, when 21 years later their precious Son was being led to Calvary? Had they come to terms with Jesus' purpose on the earth? Did they even understand it? Looking back after His resurrection, did they regret the times they pleaded with Him to change His course? Did they see God's ultimate plan for the salvation of the world? Were they proud of His humility and sacrificial love -- or ashamed by the thorns and nail-pierced hands?

It's not easy setting aside our wishes for those we love in order to make room for God's plan for their lives. We find ourselves wishing they remain close to us and fulfill our plans for their lives. It isn't necessarily selfish -- but rather a lack of eternal perspective. Mary may not have known that her baby boy would "one day rule the nations," and she may especially not have approved the means for Him getting there, but He went. He fulfilled God's plan for His life and even though it may have been hard on Mary and Joseph, think of the consequences for all of us had Jesus decided not to follow His Heavenly Father's will because His loved ones here on earth wished to keep Him safely with them.

Though letting someone go so they may follow God's will may be hard, "all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose." (Romans 8:28)

Praise the Lord that Jesus stayed the course and followed God's ultimate will for Him in order to give us salvation from our sinfulness, even if it is only in hindsight that His beloved friends and family could understand the necessity of His brutal death on the cross.