June 30, 2011: Eternal Life and the Grace of God

I wrote this last night for my Rest of the Old, Old Story blog. I'm ahead on that blog, though, so I scheduled it to come out in a few days rather than right away.

Nonetheless, here's the same post, but on this blog! It's called "Humbled To Be Found Worthy."

Tonight, June 29, I'm sitting in an RV, and except for the miracle of modern medicine, I'd be dying very rapidly. I may still die, I suppose, though I believe God has told me that's not the end of this leukemia path for me.

Still, I think about death and eternal life. Even though I know it's happened to thousands and millions of people, it still amazes me how our lives can go on and on for decades, seemingly so stable and normal, and then death quite suddenly shoves its way in.

So now I have this dread disease. Cancer.gov refers to it as "highly responsive, but usually fatal." The time frame is usually under two years. At that point, you're cured or dead.

I don't want to die.

I don't mean die on this earth. Everyone's going to physically die. No sense worrying about that.

I mean I don't want death to be the end. I want to live forever. The thought of disappearing into blackness is scary to me, and that thought, on occasions in my life, even as a Christian, has really shaken me.

And now, here I am, with a lot of reasons to think about death, and God is so close.

Today, it's no problem to picture disappearing into the light of God because I'm already there. Today, it's no problem believing Jesus' promise of eternal life.

In fact, today, it's no problem believing that the issue of life after death won't be an issue for me for at least 20 years or so, even though doctors are going to wipe out my bone marrow and immune system next week.

Why should I be so unworried? Why should this time be the time for me to have the most peace I've ever had?

For the same reason those Vietnam POW's gave thanks to God when they were released.

Because God is real, and his Gospel is real.

And so I sit thankful. I have been given this incredible peace, and such a wonderful opportunity to talk about it.

All because God thinks I can handle having leukemia dumped on me.

I feel honored, and I feel humbled.

I remember making rank once in the military after I refused to study for my test, choosing instead to devote myself to the study of God's Word. The test scores required to make rank that cycle were lower than any before or after for several years.

I cried on my bed when I was told.

The rank didn't matter that much to me, but that God would give me such a gift was overwhelming.

You can pray for me. You can think I'm strong. You can think I'm a good Christian, but I'm really not a very good Christian. I can give you lists of people who have lived lives of constant self-denial, while I've spent too much time in restaurants, occasionally failed to "get around" to giving, and simply indulged at times when I should have denied myself.

Can I really claim to have "buffeted" my body as Paul describes in 1 Corinthians 9:27?

I doubt it, unless you apply the modern term "buffet," as in a really indulgent restaurant, to the verse, which really isn't a very funny joke.

People like Mother Theresa cause my conscience to be stricken. Amy Carmichael once wrote a book called If. I couldn't read it. I'm in the church now, which has done some very positive work on my weak will, so now I can at least read it. Though it convicts me, I can see where God has moved me forward in things that book talks about.

I've traveled, and I've met foreign missionaries who have hung out all night in jungles being eaten by mosquitoes, then swam a dangerous river towing bible wrapped in plastic, all to bring the Gospel to those who don't have it. Me? I'm a self-indulgent, wealthy American. Such men make me wonder whether I qualify as a Christian.

May God have mercy on me.

Only I don't have to say "may." God has already had mercy on me. He's let me feel the process of dying, and he's held my hand and told me he's with me.

If leukemia kills me, the only thing that will matter is the terrible hurt that will cause my family. May God allow me to teach my children to trust God the way that he is teaching me to trust him. There is nothing like walking in the Spirit.

For me, though, all I can think is the wonderful kindness of being shown eternal life by God because leukemia is destroying my blood.

Why is this happening to me? Why is God allowing me, of all people, to bear this, to experience such wonderful assurances? Why is he choosing me, of all people, to get to carry this disease and talk about the power of Jesus Christ, who never leaves us nor forsakes us?

I do know why. I'm not a very good Christian, but I am a Christian. I am a man of faith, and I have chose to learn from Jesus.

It's far better to be a lousy disciple than a non-disciple.

Don't fool yourself, though. To get the blessings, you do have to make a choice to enroll in his school, to choose his ways, and to give up what you want.

Yeah, I know. It's a terrible price. Your dreams of being a pilot, your college, your exercise, your business, and even your parents, siblings, wife, and children, all don't mean much to him except as they are put in his service.

Of course, he made them all. I suppose that gives him a right to them.

Personally, it's a price that today I regret less than ever.

June 24, 2011 (Part II): Dealing with Leukemia

I'm pretty sure I let my wife know that I probably had leukemia with a text.

Thinking about it now, that was probably pretty stupid.

It worked out okay, though, because all she was worried about was how I was handling it. All I was worried about was how she was handling it.

She didn't even cancel her shopping trip, though Janelle, my 15-year-old daughter, ran into the bathroom at the gas station to sob.

Ouch.

God began to speak immediately. I became absolutely confident that I wasn't supposed to die and that I was supposed to have leukemia.

Suddenly, what should have been very horrible became very exciting.

What was I going to do? Who was I going to get to talk to?

Our church has recently experienced a bit of a cleansing. We're excited, we're focused, and we're looking for ways to preach the Gospel.

I love kids, especially teenagers. I hang out with them at night, watch movies, talk about God, and listen to their stories. I play soccer with them (thus helping them to feel fast, agile, and strong as they run around me with abandon), bowl with them (now there I usually win), and take them on trips.

So I've been thinking about ways to help them reach out to the community.

When I was a young Christian, an evangelist took me out street witnessing, and I kept up the habit for several years (with very limited success). So I thought about taking the kids out to witness on the streets, but that didn't seem very appropriate for a small town like Selmer.

I thought about getting a table at the local flea market and putting out tracts and some of our village's music CD's. That seemed like something I could take kids along for.

But now, what a great opportunity. I have leukemia! I'm going to visit hospitals, talk to patients in waiting rooms, and display the faith and joy of Christ to doctors and nurses.

I don't know how to bring the kids into that, though I'm going to give it a whirl, but what a wonderful opportunity for the Gospel!

Even more, I'm a writer. I wrote In the Beginning Was the Logos recently. It's a 400-page book on the Council of Nicea.

I wrote In the Beginning Was the Logos to create an audience for the things I really want to write about: the Gospel as the apostles preached it and the church as the apostles raised it up.

I hoped that In the Beginning would effectively create an audience because making history understandable and exciting is a skill of mine. Further, the Council of Nicea, the subject of my book, is a controversial subject, thoroughly misrepresented (slandered?) in The Da Vinci Code and mentioned in blogs, Yahoo! Answers, and internet forums repeatedly every day.

I know the history of the Council of Nicea, I know its sources, and I know how to tell the history believably and to make the sources understandable and interesting to the average person.

With an audience won over by In the Beginning, I hoped to have an audience for the much more controversial things I have to say about the church as the apostles started it. (If you're all fired up for Jesus and for the Gospel, then you won't find it very controversial. If you're a fake, which is not the same as a weak person, then you'll find it both controversial and offensive. Good, quit pretending.)

That was my best shot at creating an audience. Prove I'm a skilled historian and interesting storyteller, then with some trust built, go further.

Not a bad plan, but now God's got a better one!

I don't know if you've had some dread disease, but dropping the name of a disease like leukemia is a real conversation stopper. Say you've been diagnosed with leukemia, and everyone is silent, completely ready to give you the next word.

And if your next word is that you're thrilled to death about it, can't you imagine that most people are going to wonder and even ask why?

Caveat: I don't think Americans need Jesus shoved down their throats. For the most part, American Christians are Christians in name only. They are powerless, and they aren't any different from the world. Too many of the ones who are not nominal are rude, uncaring, big mouths who push Jesus like they're used car salesmen and he's a 10-year old Cadillac.

I'm not talking about snapping up the opportunity to give one more useless, pushy sales pitch to ask Jesus into their hearts.

I'm talking about the opportunity to testify of the wonderful grace of God that has caused both me and my family to be filled with joy and excitement at the new adventure we're on. I'm talking about being an example of really trusting God and letting God prove that he's trustworthy.

The kingdom of God is about power, not words (1 Cor. 4:20). When we start demonstrating the power and Spirit of God, then the Gospel will really be turned loose, and people will be begging us, "How can I, too, be saved?"

One final statement. There's a lot of other people who have been a lot more faithful, a lot kinder, less short-tempered, and a better example of the wonderful grace of God than I have been. There's a lot, and I work hard to follow in their footsteps and learn from them.

I'm not talking about those people when I complain about the judgmental, rude ones.

Nor am I condemning the nominal. They're abundant because we have a really crummy understanding of what the church is. The devil's been using Christian clubs to keep Christians apart for centuries, and we're doing nothing about it because we think they're churches.

We can do better than that, and Christians who abandon or ignore those clubs can enter into a fellowship, power, and grace beyond what most of them have imagined.

The early Christians used to talk about it because they had it.

Tragedies do not cause problems in our brotherhood, and the family possessions, which generally destroy brotherhood among you, create fraternal bonds among us. One in mind and soul, we do not hesitate to share our earthly goods with one another. All things are common among us but our wives. (Tertullian. Apology. Chapter 39. c. A.D. 210.)

These older posts are catching up. It's June 30, as I write this. I actually wrote a post on June 25 for my Rest of the Old, Old Story blog. It's one of the pages on this site, along with the "About Me" page. As of today, you can access it with a tab at the top of the screen. I'm hoping my daughter will redecorate this site at some point, but we will make sure there is always access to the pages as well as that original leukemia post.

It's one of the best things I've ever written, I think.