Sunday, February 22, 2009
Do Not Fear
My wife has compiled a list of biblical verses on resiting fear by faith in the God of the Bible. If you would like this, send me an email and I will send you an attachment. These have been very significant to us.
Saturday, February 7, 2009
Modes of Coping
One of my dear students spent several months in South Africa, ministering to the poorest of the poor. While stopped at a street light, her car was broken into and all three women were robbed. Thank God nothing worse happened. It wasn't until they got to the police station that they realized that they were also bleeding from the glass that cut their faces when the front windshield was smashed.
Our minds and bodies switch into emergency gear during emergencies. This is how we are designed by God (not mindless evolution). But when the crisis wanes a bit, other items come into view. For us, this means thinking about how an acute problem that required radical treatment will affect the previous chronic problems. Healthy bodies bound back after trauma. Unhealthy bodies are another story. So, we are fairly confident the infection will be mastered by the drugs and that therapy will bring back proper functions. We continue to pray to that end, as do many others. But what will be the long term consequences of six weeks of infusion antibiotics, a pic line and the rest? We do not know. But we will hope and storm heaven with Scripture, pleading the promises of God on our behalf for healing and restoration for God's glory and our good.
Our minds and bodies switch into emergency gear during emergencies. This is how we are designed by God (not mindless evolution). But when the crisis wanes a bit, other items come into view. For us, this means thinking about how an acute problem that required radical treatment will affect the previous chronic problems. Healthy bodies bound back after trauma. Unhealthy bodies are another story. So, we are fairly confident the infection will be mastered by the drugs and that therapy will bring back proper functions. We continue to pray to that end, as do many others. But what will be the long term consequences of six weeks of infusion antibiotics, a pic line and the rest? We do not know. But we will hope and storm heaven with Scripture, pleading the promises of God on our behalf for healing and restoration for God's glory and our good.
Wednesday, February 4, 2009
Max
Little Max is out of the hospital, having improved for 24 hours straight. It was anticipated that he would have to stay another few days. Thanks for your prayers. He is still very sick, but his blood oxygen level is normal.
Pray for Sick Baby
Dear Friends:
I want to preserve the family's privacy, but a good friend of mine's four-month old boy is very sick in the hospital with influenza and other complications. Please pray for little Max.
I want to preserve the family's privacy, but a good friend of mine's four-month old boy is very sick in the hospital with influenza and other complications. Please pray for little Max.
Saturday, January 31, 2009
Unbidden Lessons
Illness always intrudes; it never ingratiates. It comes unbidden, without invitation. But as Christians, we can become more humble and faithful through it in several ways. Let me give an partial list.
1. We can realize we have not thought through out theology of sickness and healing, of God's Kingdom in relation to illness. We can change and seek the deep things of God on this by immersing ourselves in the Bible, prayer, and books on the topic.
2. We can embrace virtues we have never developed and shun vices we have identified with our very personalities. Illness requires great love and faith and patience to deal with. Anger and bitterness, while things to work through before God, are not the answer to this crucible. We may submit to lessons otherwise unlearned: love is patient, kind, and gentle. Remaining faithful to God, come what may, is a staple of the Christian life, as is lamenting the losses and crying out to God for liberation. The Psalms have so much to teach us in this.
3. Illness also opens up areas of other people's lives we may not normally see--in both the sick and the well. Unexpected kindnesses are expressed by unlikely souls. Those smitten with illness may show strength and resolve in surprising ways. And, of course, inner darkness can be revealed through chronic and acute illness as well. It is, after all, still a world groaning in anticipation of its final redemption.
1. We can realize we have not thought through out theology of sickness and healing, of God's Kingdom in relation to illness. We can change and seek the deep things of God on this by immersing ourselves in the Bible, prayer, and books on the topic.
2. We can embrace virtues we have never developed and shun vices we have identified with our very personalities. Illness requires great love and faith and patience to deal with. Anger and bitterness, while things to work through before God, are not the answer to this crucible. We may submit to lessons otherwise unlearned: love is patient, kind, and gentle. Remaining faithful to God, come what may, is a staple of the Christian life, as is lamenting the losses and crying out to God for liberation. The Psalms have so much to teach us in this.
3. Illness also opens up areas of other people's lives we may not normally see--in both the sick and the well. Unexpected kindnesses are expressed by unlikely souls. Those smitten with illness may show strength and resolve in surprising ways. And, of course, inner darkness can be revealed through chronic and acute illness as well. It is, after all, still a world groaning in anticipation of its final redemption.
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
The Inner Language of Sorrow
Chronic and acute illness may call forth a bevy of emotions--or, perhaps, a paucity of emotions. Some of us are emotionally undernourished, ill-equipped to "weep with those who weep and laugh with those who laugh." Our affective vocabulary is attenuated; our passional repertoire is minuscule. We are stunted.
The palate of the soul should be multicolored, with the proper colors brought to bear on a whole range of situations associated with illness and recovery and healing. For many men, anger and impatience may nearly exhaust the range of response. Every since high school, I have relished words, learning as many English words--and some foreign phrases to throw around--as possible. In college, I began to note and define all the new words I was learning. This stared in 1976 and my last entry was in 1994, covering well over 100 pages. I mastered quite a few sesquipedalians, in fact. (This blog's spell check does not even recognize this word.)
When it comes to emotional vocabulary, I sit at a much lower level. Yet just as higher education evoked a mastery of words, health crises evoke--or should evoke--a mastery of emotions: learning to find and experience the proper emotion to the proper degree. For some of us, this meaning learning how to weep. Consider all the weeping of godly people--not just women--in the Holy Bible. Jeremiah was "the weeping prophet." Jesus wept at the tomb of Lazarus. One could go on. The Hebrew people knew how to mourn, lament, and to do so before God and with each other. Consider all the emotional range of the Psalms, I have much to learn from them and through the Holy Spirit. The fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5) concerns healthy and apt emotions, not just actions.
Lord, teach us to feel the gamut of feelings that fit the facts at hand.
The palate of the soul should be multicolored, with the proper colors brought to bear on a whole range of situations associated with illness and recovery and healing. For many men, anger and impatience may nearly exhaust the range of response. Every since high school, I have relished words, learning as many English words--and some foreign phrases to throw around--as possible. In college, I began to note and define all the new words I was learning. This stared in 1976 and my last entry was in 1994, covering well over 100 pages. I mastered quite a few sesquipedalians, in fact. (This blog's spell check does not even recognize this word.)
When it comes to emotional vocabulary, I sit at a much lower level. Yet just as higher education evoked a mastery of words, health crises evoke--or should evoke--a mastery of emotions: learning to find and experience the proper emotion to the proper degree. For some of us, this meaning learning how to weep. Consider all the weeping of godly people--not just women--in the Holy Bible. Jeremiah was "the weeping prophet." Jesus wept at the tomb of Lazarus. One could go on. The Hebrew people knew how to mourn, lament, and to do so before God and with each other. Consider all the emotional range of the Psalms, I have much to learn from them and through the Holy Spirit. The fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5) concerns healthy and apt emotions, not just actions.
Lord, teach us to feel the gamut of feelings that fit the facts at hand.
Sunday, January 25, 2009
Not Reading
To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven--Ecclesiastes 3:1 (KJV).
Ever since I started college in 1975, God has granted me large periods of time to read, study, and write. Not long after my conversion in the summer of 1976, I sensed a call to become learned, to study as a way of life. Reading Schaeffer's The God Who is There that fall was pivotal in this discernment. The call was further crystallized by my reading of Kierkegaard's Purity of Heart is to Will One Thing about a year later. I have not always used my time wisely, but I have never deviated from a desire to develop a knowledgeable and Christian mind about the things that matter most (see Romans 12:1-2).
About thirty years later, having become a professor and an author, I am learning how not to read, not to study, and not to write. You see, life "under the sun" has gotten in the way. Sickness takes time and requires assistance. I am the primary assistant. Study time is what is left over after doctor visits, administrations of medicine, weeping, praying, and general care taking.
Most people in our overly-busy, nonstudious culture need the disciple to read, to take time away from other distracting things and be alone in a room with a good book (which would probably be a form of torture for many if extended beyond a few minutes). I often publicly exhort people unto such things in the name of God.
Now, I need the disciple not to read, study, and write--and not be bitter about not reading, not working on my magum opus (an apologetics textbook). I have need of patience and endurance, Christian virtues available through prayer, repentance, and the power of the Holy Spirit.
Ever since I started college in 1975, God has granted me large periods of time to read, study, and write. Not long after my conversion in the summer of 1976, I sensed a call to become learned, to study as a way of life. Reading Schaeffer's The God Who is There that fall was pivotal in this discernment. The call was further crystallized by my reading of Kierkegaard's Purity of Heart is to Will One Thing about a year later. I have not always used my time wisely, but I have never deviated from a desire to develop a knowledgeable and Christian mind about the things that matter most (see Romans 12:1-2).
About thirty years later, having become a professor and an author, I am learning how not to read, not to study, and not to write. You see, life "under the sun" has gotten in the way. Sickness takes time and requires assistance. I am the primary assistant. Study time is what is left over after doctor visits, administrations of medicine, weeping, praying, and general care taking.
Most people in our overly-busy, nonstudious culture need the disciple to read, to take time away from other distracting things and be alone in a room with a good book (which would probably be a form of torture for many if extended beyond a few minutes). I often publicly exhort people unto such things in the name of God.
Now, I need the disciple not to read, study, and write--and not be bitter about not reading, not working on my magum opus (an apologetics textbook). I have need of patience and endurance, Christian virtues available through prayer, repentance, and the power of the Holy Spirit.
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