Being Prepared

One of my struggles throughout life is the need to be prepared. I have friends who seem to survive well without much obvious preparation. I have pastor-friends who don’t spend much time on their sermons; they just talk off the top of their heads. But not me. That’s not one of my gifts.

From early on, I have felt the need to prepare. I think it’s because of my fear of failure. I don’t do well shooting from the hip! I don’t want to come across as unprepared. That’s one reason I wrote out every one of my sermons in full manuscript, and then took the manuscript with me into the pulpit. It’s a tedious way of doing sermon preparation, but at least I was prepared and, hopefully, my preparation was evident.

I’m not prone to nightmares—never have been. But the closest thing I have had through the years to a nightmare was some situation in which I found myself unprepared. I can’t tell you of the number of dreams I’ve had where I was ready to go into a worship service but I couldn’t find my sermon notes or my Bible. And I couldn’t even remember what my sermon topic was! At other times, I wasn’t dressed appropriately. I would panic as I desperately searched for my Bible or my shoes. The music had begun but I wasn’t ready.

I had such a dream last night. My nurse says that my dreams or anxiety are caused either by my disease or the Methadone I’m taking. In my dream last night I was scheduled to lead a Bible study. I’m not sure of the setting or the group I was to lead. But I’m sure of this: I was not prepared. Or if I was prepared, I couldn’t locate my Bible or my Bible study notes. In addition, I was on the ground with the group huddled around me. I couldn’t move. I was surrounded by sheer misery!

Some of this fear of being unprepared is bleeding over into my impending journey to heaven. How prepared am I for this journey? Have I done enough to merit entrance? What more do I need to do to get ready? What if I get there, thinking that I am prepared, only to discover that I’ve “misplaced my notes”? It may sound funny, but it’s not. It’s a valid question and a reasonable fear.

What I have to remind myself is that there is nothing I can do to merit entrance into heaven. God, through Christ, has done it all for me. In reality, I am not prepared, nor do I deserve a place in heaven. But the price has been paid, entrance is assured. All I have to do is to accept the free gift.

The Bible makes it clear: “Let not your heart be troubled….In my Father’s house are many dwelling places; if it were not so, I would have told you; for I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself; that where I am, there you may be also” (John 14:1-4).

The place has been prepared; the price has been paid. I don’t have to have my “notes” with me. God has taken care of everything.

I can’t tell you how much relief and assurance that brings me. My entrance into heaven doesn’t depend on what I’ve done, how much preparation I’m made. I have accepted Christ and He has made it all possible. Thanks be to God.

Faithfulness

There are so many qualities in life that I admire and to which I aspire. But none greater than faithfulness. I want people to be able to say, “Whatever else you can say about Jack, he was faithful.” At the top of the list of the qualities of God is His faithfulness. He is a God of love and forgiveness, of mercy and steadfast love. But without His faithfulness to live out these qualities, we would have no assurance that God would be true to them.

Most people today are willing to make only short-term promises—just for today. In contrast, God exhibits and demonstrates faithfulness until the end of time. Psalm 100:5 says, “The Lord is good and His love endures forever; His faithfulness continues through all generations.”

Through the years, my favorite hymn has become “Great Is Thy Faithfulness.” The hymn writer, Thomas O. Chisholm, is right:

"Great is Thy faithfulness, O God my Father...
Morning by morning new mercies I see.
All I have needed Thy hand hath provided.
Great is Thy faithfulness, Lord, unto me."

My favorite verse in the hymn is verse three:

“Pardon for sin and a peace that endureth
Thine own dear presence to cheer and to guide;
Strength for today and bright hope for tomorrow,
Blessings all mine, with ten thousand beside!”

In four lines, the writer outlines the great faithfulness of God. The greatest mark of God’s faithfulness is His forgiveness for sins which leads to a peace that endureth all things.

We are promised God’s presence to add joy or cheer to our journey and to guide us each step of the way.

Then, we are promised strength for today and bright hope for tomorrow. It’s this promise that I’m clinging to most tightly during this phase of the journey.

But the writer’s thoughts of God’s blessings are soon exhausted. He just scratches the surface here. In addition to these, he tells us that there are ten thousand beside!


And now that I stand on the brink of death, I remember and cling to one of His specific and special promises, “In my Father’s house are many rooms...I am going there to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me. For where I am, there you will be also” [Matthew 14:2-4]. I’m glad that I can cling to this promise of God.

How I wish I could attend the memorial service to sing with you of God’s faithfulness. You can count on the fact that I’ll be joining you in spirit.

“Great is Thy faithfulness, O God my Father...
Morning by morning new mercies I see.
All I have needed Thy hand hath provided.
Great is Thy faithfulness, Lord, unto me.”

Lamentations was written by Jeremiah, the weeping prophet. Chapter 3 is a litany of laments and will break your heart. Everything has gone wrong for Jeremiah. Nothing has gone right. You and I would throw up our hands and give up. But not Jeremiah. And what got him though this time of great tragedy? The promise of the faithful, loving kindness, of God.

After his description of tragedy, he comes to verse 41 when he uses the transitional word, “but.” “But this I call to mind and therefore, I have hope. The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases. His mercies never come to an end. They are new every morning. Great is thy faithfulness.”

Join me today in claiming the promise of God to be faithful. His steadfast love and mercies are new every morning. Claim them today!

- Jack

Honesty in Prayer

I’ve written about my attempts to be honest in dealing with cancer. And for the most part, I think I have been honest. But last week I reached a new degree of honesty in my prayer life. As I have shared before, I have acknowledged my anger with my condition. I’ve admitted to fear as I face the future. But a few days ago I reached another level of frustration.

I was by myself. I was not having a good day. I was wondering if I had begun the downhill slide to death. In the midst of these feelings, I began to weep uncontrollably, crying out to God, “It’s not fair! It’s just not fair! Why me? Why won’t you take this evil thing away from me?” It was a cathartic experience that immediately brought cleansing to my soul.

In reflecting on the experience, I was reminded of the Psalmist’s stance as he faced uncertainty and anger and distress. In his honesty, he cried out to God, “Why have you forsaken me? Why do you allow the wicked to prosper and the righteous to suffer? When will all this end? What have I done to deserve this?” The psalmist was never nearer to the heart of God than when he honestly expressed his anger and frustration over what was happening.

But the Psalmist didn’t stop with frustration or doubt. He always moved to certainty: “Nevertheless, I will trust you….” On the cross, Jesus used the psalmist’s words, “Why have you forsaken me?”, to express His pain and frustration. But at the end of the day, He affirmed His faith in God : “Into your hands I commend my spirit.”

I am developing a new honesty in my prayer life. I’m trying to be real with God. After all, He already knows my feelings — there’s no hiding them from Him. He much prefers my coming to Him forthrightly, in all candor, honestly expressing my innermost feelings to Him. I’m learning, with Jesus, to sweat great drops of blood as I cry out for deliverance, but then to place my life in His hands: “Nevertheless, not my will, but thine be done.”

It’s only when I’ve been honest enough to admit my fear and frustration, my disappointment and anger, that I am then able to place my life in His hands, knowing that He will do what’s best. There can be no resurrection without the cross, no Easter without Good Friday, no wholeness without first being crippled. I’m reminded of Jacob wrestling with the angel all night long, until his joint was thrown out of place and he limped away from his encounter with God. The price of his wholeness was being crippled from his wrestling with God. But without the honest wrestling match, there would have been no authentic encounter with God!

And that’s where I find myself during these difficult days: searching for wholeness through being crippled by the pain and misery of cancer; discovering eternal life through the bitterness of death; dying in order to live. Is it easy? Heavens no! The tears of last week weren’t the first, nor will they be the last. But I trust that through my struggle with death, I will discover the joy of life eternal through Jesus Christ. I want to discover the truth that Paul discovered, “For me to live is Christ; to die is gain.”

Take my brokenness, Lord, and make me whole. Amen.

Dealing with Anger

I had a wonderful visit this week with a dear friend who is also a therapist. In a gentle, but firm way, she helped me to deal with my anger over what is happening to me. Psychologists remind us that anger is part and parcel of the grief process. What have I done with my anger?

For some Christians, anger is difficult to acknowledge and deal with. We refuse to admit that we are angry. It’s just not the “Christian thing” to do. Others spend time with misplaced anger. While others wallow in anger and never work through it in any redemptive way.

My friend Ann asked me, “What have you done with your anger?”

That’s a good question. I think I have dealt with my anger in an appropriate way. I am angry that this cancer has robbed me of my future on this earth. Just when new opportunities were falling into place and the future for expanded ministry looked bright, here comes pancreatic cancer to deny me of the blessings of this earthly life. Sure, I’m angry. Deeply angry! But, at whom?

There’s nothing wrong in admitting that, at times, we are angry with God. Okay, we don’t believe that God sent this life-ending disease, but couldn’t He have done something to prevent it? Couldn’t God, in His omnipotence, simply snuffed out this dread disease? If He could, why didn’t He? In my humanness, I have a right to be angry with God.

But that is a dead-end street. In the beginning, I had these same thoughts, this same anger, about a loving God who did nothing to stop this horrific, life-ending disease. But I soon moved beyond this God-blaming exercise. God loves me more that I can begin to comprehend, and He would never do anything to bring harm to me or to deny me of abundant life.

So, who can I blame? With whom can I be angry? There are times when there is no one to blame. We live in a fallen, imperfect, world where things like pancreatic cancer occur. Well, then, with whom should I be angry. Not at myself, not at God. But at this imperfect world where babies die far too soon, where people are massacred without cause, where hunger and sickness abound, where those with power crush those who are poor and powerless and marginalized.

But anger at this fallen world is not enough. What am I doing about it? How much of myself am I giving to eradicate the evil in this life? What am I doing to encourage research into life-shortening and life-eroding diseases? How supportive am I, though the gifts of my time, energy, and resources in helping empower those whose lives are robbed of their basic freedom and human rights?

Yes, I’m angry with how my life is ending! I’m angry that the evil of cancer is robbing me of the opportunity of embracing life for years to come. I can choose to deny or repress that anger. Or I can choose to acknowledge my anger, deal with it in redemptive ways, and ask God to keep anger from threatening to rob me of what time I have left.

I choose the latter. I refuse to allow anger to embitter me or to rob me of the joy that God wants to give me. I choose to use what remaining time I have to channel my anger in redemptive ways. I invite you to join me in dealing creatively with our anger as we move toward the future that God has prepared for us—a future devoid of anger and filled with hope and courage.

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The Fear of Death

It seems that there is built into all of us a basic fear of death. I think God intended it that way so we will hold onto life. But for some, this normal fear of death becomes exaggerated, almost psychotic, and it colors the way we live.

I’ve said to you in a former blog that I have no fear of death; it’s the dying I dread.

And that’s true, with some qualifications. Let me explain myself. I grew up in a loving, caring church, but we had our annual round of revival preachers, most of whom were extremely fundamentalist. And no revival was complete without a sermon on the horrors of hell. Some preachers were really good at painting the terrors of those who died in an unforgiven state. I remember, as a little boy, literally “having the hell scared out of me.” Or, at least, that was the purpose of these sermons.

But what they did was to frighten me beyond reason about death and what might lie on the other side. I now realize that these sermons were more Miltonian (Paradise Lost), Dantean (Inferno) or Edwardian (Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God) than Biblical. Much damage and bad theology has been done through these images. Hell, as we know it in popular images of tormented souls is relatively new and has its roots in the Middle Ages. For instance, when Dante wrote his Divine Comedy, he gave us a blueprint for the soul’s descent into hell. But I didn’t know that then and a great fear of hell was engendered in my spirit. I was just a boy, for the most part still innocent, but I was made to fear death because of the reality of the horrors of hell that just might lie beyond.

Throughout my years of growing up, I had an unreasonable fear of death. I often dreaded going to sleep at night, because I might die during my sleep and wind up in some great “unknown.”

I think a secondary cause of my fear of death was the fact that in death I would lose control, and relinquishing all control was a frightening prospect. I liked to think that I had a modicum of control of my life — but that would be taken from me in death.

I wrestled with these inordinate fears long after I should have dealt with them. But gradually my faith in God overcame them. If God is good and gracious, if He wants the best for me, then I have no fear of dying. My sins have been forgiven and hell holds no power over me. I’m bound for heaven, not hell. In addition, why should I fear turning over control of my life to God when He wants nothing but the best for me?

That’s why I say that I have no fear of death. There is still uncertainty about what death entails. There is a degree of fear about the unknown. But the God who promises eternal life will be there to take me by the hand and escort me into the heavenly realm. As the psalmist discovered, “Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for thou art with me” (Psalm 23).

I hope you will join me in that certainty as we all move toward the unknown known as death.



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Fatherhood

“Thank God for parents.”

This Father’s Day was the best!!

Both Stephanie (and Henry) and Charley were with me. We laughed and cried and celebrated the joys of being family.

This got me to thinking about my parents. I’m thinking much more these days about those who have helped shape me and whose love has made me what I am.

Neither of my parents would have been considered “successful” by the world’s standards. Neither graduated from high school, and my father never held a job that paid much more than minimum wage. I lived on the wrong side of the tracks - in what today would be considered an impoverished life. But in my view, they were most successful in the ways they touched my life and the lives of many others. They taught me that who I was was more important than what I possessed.

They taught me the values of a life that matters: honesty, compassion, service to others, and a love that is freely given and holds on tenaciously. But, most of all, they taught me the value of faith.

During our nightly family devotionals, I first heard the Bible read by my father, and I learned to pray by hearing the prayers of my mother. Theirs was a faith that was deeply held and demonstrated in their words and actions.

Over time their faith became my own. It grew in ways unlike theirs. We didn’t always agree on points of theology. In fact, they had no carefully reasoned system of theology, they simply lived by what the believed. But their faith continues to influence the way I live my life.

On this Father’s Day, I salute my mother and father, and give thanks to God for the way they taught me to live and give myself in service and love to others. I am reminded of the profound influence we have on our children. My children have not always lived out their faith in ways that I wish they had.

But I have seen the faith that Anita and I tried to instill in them take root and blossom and reach out in ways that my own faith failed to do. I apologize for the many ways I have failed my children, but I rejoice that they have overlooked my mistakes and have affirmed me in my faith.

For many young children, their father is their first hero, their model for living. For over 30 years I have kept a Father’s Day card that Stephanie made for me. In her childish handwriting, she listed her heroes. They were in this order:
“ Daddy, Jesus, and Hercules!”

You see, these were the individuals whom she thought were most powerful, strongest and smartest in all the world.

Tears welled up in my eyes, as I opened my Father’s Day card this year. It said:
“Dad, when I was a kid, you told me about the important things like hard work and good character.. . . but I learned the most from watching how you lived.“

And then Stephanie wrote, this time with much clearer penmanship,
“Who are my heroes? Daddy, Jesus, and Hercules!”

She and Charley have made my life worth living through their unflinching love and their total acceptance and affirmation of me as their father. I pray that you will have the same kind of experience with your children and you will never forget the influence you play on their lives.

Thank you, Mother and Daddy, for being such wonderful parents.
Thank you, Stephanie and Charley, for graciously accepting me as your father.
And thank you, Anita, for making it possible for me to experience the joys of fatherhood and for sharing those experiences with me!

Marriage

One of the many thoughts that has flooded my mind over the past few months has been my gratitude for the greatest gift that God has given me (apart from my relationship with Him) — the gift of Anita as my wife. Yesterday (June 1), we celebrated our 44th anniversary.

I knew I loved Anita back in 1963, but I had no idea of how much that love would grow and shape who I am and how I have functioned in life.

Without getting “syrupy”, I want to acknowledge that Anita, with her considerable gifts in music and art, has been the one who has added splashes of color and beautiful music to my life. Nowhere do I find this better expressed than in the lyrics of Kenny Rogers, “You Decorated My Life.” Rogers writes as if he is writing of Anita’s impact on my life:

All my life was a paper
That was plain, pure and white
Till the balance was right
Till you moved with your pen
Changing mood now and then
Then you added some music
Every note was in place
And anybody could see
All the changes in me
By the look on my face

And you decorated my life
Created a world where dreams are a part
And you decorated my life
By painting your love all over my heart
You decorated my life

Like a rhyme with no reason
And an unfinished song
There was no harmony
Life meant nothing to me
Until you came along
Then you brought out the colors
What a gentle surprise
Now I'm able to see all the things life can be
Shining soft in your eyes

Lest you think we have had an idyllic marriage, we have struggled with many of the same issues that most couples struggle with in marriage. We are almost totally opposite on all the personality profiles. We often see things differently, react differently, and struggle to see the other person’s point of view.

But behind all that is a profound love and trust and respect that have bonded us together in a love that shapes and defines us. And into my rather routine, vanilla, and at times boring life, Anita has added the color and music that have enriched my life more than I can express.

From day one, we have shared the same values, been committed to the same causes, and felt passionately about the same issues. And at the heart of everything has been our shared faith that has bound us together in an unbreakable bond.

Anita could not possibly have been a better wife. She has affirmed me, supported me, forgiven me, and brought out the very best in me. In the words of Scripture, she, as a wife, “surpasses them all.”

And she has been an equally wonderful mother to Stephanie and Charley. As we have reminisced with our children over the past few months, I have been reminded of the many ways she helped shaped their lives, planting seeds of honesty, integrity, creativity, and faith that will serve them well to the end of their lives.

Anita has been my best friend, my lover, my companion in ministry, my confidante and my biggest booster. I can’t imagine life without her.

And so, on our 44th anniversary, I want to pay tribute to the one who has enriched my life is indescribable ways. Though death may temporarily separate us in a physical way, nothing can ultimately break the bonds of love that have bound us together for all these years. Using the words of Buzz Lightyear, our love will last “to infinity and beyond!”